Spark
by purplemudkip31
Summary: Set after MAX. Spark is freed from the Institute by the flock, so she attempts to find them later. The only problem is, she's a genetic hybrid of a bird, cat, and human.
1. Chapter 1

I was in the city known as New York. The Big Apple. Surely you've heard of it. It's big and fancy, and this was where I was born- or made- and raised for most of my life. All of it, in fact, until about nine months ago.

But it wasn't fun. I was pretty much tortured, and labeled as a freak.

But I had survived, and now I was looking at newspapers I had managed to find in the streets, garbage, whatever. But anyway, I picked one up, looked at the headline, and froze. I read it again.

Then I stared at the newspaper in disbelief some more. Sure, it was a month and a half old, but the picture on the front held my attention.

According to the accompanying headline, it said, "Miracle Bird Kids Put on Air Show".

I knew why this shocked me so much. Underneath my bandanna, my ears grew warm when I remembered that fateful day, nine months ago…

_A clanging at the door made me, Spark look up anxiously. Surely they wouldn't want tests now. Another chink! and light peeked in through a crack. I flattened my ears and hid my tail in fear, but there was nothing I could do about the wings._

_To my shock, six kids, of varying ages, ran in. Even weirder- they started opening cages._

_They got to mine, and, amazingly, noticed only my wings. Without hesitation I slipped through the cage door and ran, ran like never before._

_After a seemingly endless journey through twisted waterways, along with the other mutants, I burst into sunlight for the first time. I gasped at the golden rays. But a lady nearby noticed all the genetic mutants coming out of the subway tunnel, and screamed._

_Some cars pulled up, blaring an alarm and flashing lights. I knew I might have been in danger, so I took a chance._

_I opened my black wings and jumped high._

_Pushing down with my wings like I had seen birds do, it hit me- I was flying. It felt amazing, and I climbed higher, 'til I was over the tallest skyscrapers._

_I finally felt safe, so I let my ears prick up and tail relax. Then, I turned to the horizon, where I could stay near the ocean and still go south. Deciding on my course, I pushed my wings down hard and flew in my chosen direction._

Of course, that was nine months ago. Now, I recognized the faces on the front of the paper. They were my saviors.

I had to find them.

_But _I didn't know where to go. After collecting change from parking lots (there's a surprising amount), I had enough to pay a phone call.

I found the number for the bird kids sponsor, the CMS or something. Armed with this info, I marched over to a telephone booth in the city I lived near and dialed the number.

After a dial tone for a few seconds, a woman's voice came on, asking, "Hi, this is the CSM you've contacted. How can I help you?"

Choosing my words carefully, I answered, "Uh, where are the, um, miracle birds kids headed?" I'll admit, I'm not the best with words. Usually.

The lady, amazingly, gave away that answer easily, "Last I heard, they were in Hawaii. They're headed to Arizona after that." Okay, then. I shall not question this.

I thank her, and head off to where I live. Packing my few belongings, I figure which direction I should go. Then squaring my shoulders, I face my chosen direction and take off, the sunlight shining gold on my wings.

Oh, and faithful readers, I think there is one other thing you should know about me. My ears I can move, and I have a tail and claws.

Yep, I'm not only mixed with a bird, but I'm mixed with a cat.

2% bird, 6% cat, 92% human, to be exact.

By the way, my name's Spark.

Glad to meet you.


	2. Chapter 2

Ugh. My wings felt like stone. I had been flying for _hours_, and yet I still had hardly reached the Tennessee border. The one near the Mississippi river, I believe.

It was high enough that any passing human would think I was a bird. A big one, but still a bird. It helped that I was short for a bird kid. Average human sized, not freakishly tall like I had seen some bird kids.

Upon finding a patch of forest, I alighted down, tucking my wings in a little early so I could land on my feet like a cat. I may have awesome landing skills and excellent balance normally, but I still manage to trip over my own feet. And tail. Go figure.

This patch of forest was close to the river. Yet it was still wild and overgrown. Perfect. No one would be able to see me here.

I padded through the forest quietly for a few minutes before finding a suitable mossy hollow in between some tree roots. Now, I was starving!

Just as I managed to find a rabbit, and kill it (yeah, no weapons required, I got CLAWS), a movement in some bushes made me look up. A small, brown tabby cat stepped out.

Now, I had company. I could use a skill of mine. "Hello!" I called to the cat.

The cat looked shocked for a moment, before meowing, "Uh, hi? You, a human, really speak cat?!?!"

I giggled for a second, remembering how funny it was to talk to animals who didn't know I could understand _them_. "Of course I can. Care to join me for a meal?"

The cat, which now I could tell was a lady cat, got over her shock and replied, eying the rabbit, "Maybe I will. You might wanna find a second rabbit, though."

* * *

Later, as I curled inside my makeshift shelter that night, the brown she-cat came back.

"I thought you might be lonely," she said quietly as she settled down beside me.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," she replied, "By the way, my names Leafia."

"Mines Spark."

When she woke the next morning she left. I was still admiring her kindness. Leafia had told me last night that she didn't have a mate or kits, so her nights could be lonely and cold.

I never had been treated kindly in my life, except by the occasional animal. A small wolf pack that took pity on me when I first escaped. A pair of pumas that taught me how to hunt and fight. And now Leafia. What was I going to do with all this kindness?

I sighed, and began to look for breakfast. I actually found a decent one, a rabbit like last night, and some berries.

You might wonder why I eat meat when I can talk to animals, and I'm 8% more of one than humans.

Well, the truth is, that humans are animals too. Every animal type has it's own language. Humans have a lot more that one language for their species. I just understand ALL the animal languages, and one human language, English.

Now, although I understand all these languages, and speak them fluently, that does not mean I won't eat meat. On the contrary, I like it. Turns out I can eat raw meat safely because I was mixed with a cat (carnivore), and I believe a golden eagle (again, carnivore).

Also, there is a common animal philosophy that the pumas, Nuri and Nova, taught me. "It is not the way of the predator to eat like prey." Nuri had said when I explained my dilemma about understanding prey's words, too. He taught me to block out their pleas, to not listen. But Nova had told me that, although a hunter still eats prey, he does not hunt and kill more than he needs.

_She fixed me with an intense stare. "And that, Spark, in the way of the hunter. Do not let humans waver you in that knowledge. For you are above them, a hunter, and they believe you are below them, as prey. Do not believe this, young one, I have seen greater beauty in nature that the humans world."_

_I looked up at her, confused and a little sad. "But Nova, I was created by humans."_

_Nova shoke her head. "No. If Queen Nature had not wanted you in this world, she would not have let you live. Believe me, Spark, you are a work of beauty. And never, ever, forget that."_

Nova and Nuri were my only parents. They didn't teach me how to fly, but they taught me how to survive.

I lived with them for 7 months. But, eventually, I wanted to go out and explore the world on my own. They let me go willingly, if a bit sadly.

I hadn't realized how much I had depended on them until my first night alone. They normally curled around me, protecting me, keeping me warm.

That night was one of the hardest of my life.

I thought this all over as I flew towards my destination.


	3. Chapter 3

I landed with my wings making a loud _whoosh_. Still panting slightly, I looked around. I had just arrived in Arizona. A week after I decided to look for the flock. And now….

THERE WASN'T ANYTHING TO SEE!?!!!?!!!! I nearly screamed, but kept my head.

What. The. Heck. I fly for a week, and I land in the middle of nowhere. Great.

I at least liked the lovely thermals rising off the warm sand. I leaped up, and began to fly again. I am not gonna be able to move my wings in the morning, though, they'll be so sore...

* * *

Finally. Finally. FINALLY after a week of nit-picking Arizona via wing I find them. The flock. And _what_ are they doing, out in the middle of a random forest?

Why, they're having a picnic!

I growled when I remember that moment I found them. I was doing the usually, flying high over trees, looking as hard as I can, and I find them. Eating more food than I had ever seen together in my life.

And, boy, I was _hungry_. So, distracted, I had made a rather clumsy landing in a bush a little way away from the flock. Now, my tail was mussed up, and I had a thorn in it. Yay (insert fake enthusiasm here).

At the moment I was crashing wildly through some bushes, yet still managing to remain quiet. Natural cat thing. I think they put too much kitty in me.

That reminded me…. What was I going to say? My trek through the forest slowed to a stop as I realized what could happen.

All of the flock were bird-human hybrids. Avian-Americans. Bird-kids.

But I was….

A freak, even compared to them. I was not a "normal" (used extremely lightly here) bird-kid. I wasn't a pure Avian-American. No. I was a…. hmm, what was I?

A flying cat-girl? That seemed to fit.

Now, what could I say? I resumed walking as I remembered my mission.

Hmm… should I fly down? Nah, that'd just scare them. Should I hide my ears and tail or what? My claws were retractable, like a… real feline's. Don't have to worry about those!

I think, if I keep my wings out, they'll be less likely to attack. And my ears…. Half-pricked, I decided, that way they'll know what I am. Emphasis on the WHAT part. Sometimes, I don't even know.

My tail. My darling tail. What was I going to do with it? I looked and it, fur mussed and a few thorns twisted in the fur. That would be why it hurt. I stopped for a few minutes to, yes, wash my tail. Satisfied, I continued.

And for those of you wondering, I do NOT use my tongue. I found a stream.

Anyway, I knew first impressions were important. Which is why I was be so conscious about my appearance.

I could hear them now. Ears pricked forward, I crept silently, calming my mind 'til my intentions were behind a shield. This wasn't for defense. It was for calming me down.

My heart was racing. What would they think of me? I calmed myself again, and quietly slunk forward. I could have heard them now, even if was a normal human, without the enhanced, super-cat (play Superman theme song here) hearing.

A few more feet, and I could see them. Peering through the ferns, I knew they wouldn't be able to see me. Again, hiding was a cat thing. The scientists had given me just enough  
DNA to had a bunch of cat-ish abilities. Thanks (again, fake enthusiasm).

They were eating. Lucky them. This thought slipped through my mind shield and was quickly shoved back into quiet concentration.

The smallest, a blond-haired girl, looked up alarmed. I instantly thought she had seen me. No, it couldn't happen.

The little one tugged on the largest girl's arm, "Max, Max."

The girl turned, her light hair waving slightly in the wind. "What is it, Angel?"

Angel turned, pointing in my direction. "I heard someone."

Max frowned slightly. "Mind or ears?"

"Mind."

Wow. This girl could read minds. Weird.

I was startled, and I stepped back quickly. And snapped a twig. Very smooth, Spark, very smooth.

At once, all the flocks' heads snapped up and looked straight at my hiding place. But, they couldn't see me?!?! Wow, that's good hearing.

"Who's there?" Max spoke now, glaring at my spot with intensity.

I knew this was the chance I had been waiting for. I half-unfurled my wings, half-pricked my ears.

And I stepped into their clearing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: This Chapter is Max 3****rd**** person. Don't ask. Just read. Then review. =^..^=**

Max stared. Even after seeing some of the creatures the whitecoats cooked up at the school, this girl looked odd.

She was average height, looked about thirteen, and had light skin. Anything normal ended there.

She had wings, like the flock, black ones. They looked like Fang's, except they shone gold, not purple, in the light. Her hair was cut almost boyishly short, and was jet black.

But Max knew this wasn't the strangest thing about her.

She had _cat ears_. Black ones. They were pricked forward.

The new girl even had a tail. A cat tail, that twitched nervously about half a foot above the ground. She shuffled her feet and glanced anxiously up at their expressions.

Max heard Iggy ask in a low voice, "What is it?"

Nudge quietly responded, "A girl, about average height with short black hair, walked out of the trees. Where the twig snapped. She has wings, like us, and a, um, tail. And cat ears."

Iggy whistled softly, obviously impressed.

Fang looked at Max, eyebrows raised. She knew what to do.

Max raised her chin. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

Yeah, it sounded cheesy even in Max's head.

Angel tugged on her sleeve. "You know _I_ can tell you that."

"Right. Let's let her explain for herself."

The new person looked up, the light showing the flock slightly slitted pupils.

"I'm Spark. You freed me from a School. In New York."

Ah. Now Max remembered.

"You didn't see my ears or tail; just my wings."

Gazzy was curious. "How? We would've seen them."

Spark's eyes flashed. "I have my ways."

Then, Nudge piped up, "So, what ARE you, exactly?"

Max glared at her. "Nudge, that was rude."

She didn't seem to mind. Spark answered her question, "I prefer… flying cat-girl. I was mixed with a black cat and a golden eagle. I think."

Gazzy snorted in amusement. Max ignored it. "Why are you here?"

She looked coolly at her. "I told you, you rescued me a while back. I wanted to find you."

"Uh…Sure."

"Max, she's okay! She doesn't want to hurt anybody, and she really has a good mind."

She looked at the tiniest member of the flock. Her eyes were huge and pleading.

Spark's ears twisted back uncomfortably. "I…. want to join your flock." She blushed and looked at the ground.

Max looked at Fang. "Let's discuss this in the air."

She looked up. "You might wanna go really high," Spark explained, "I have kitty hearing."

One by one the flock extended their wings and leaped into the air, flapping powerfully until they were high above Spark and the ground.

"Okay, what the heck? What should we do?!?" The flock had never had a request like this before.

Total, who had stayed silent so Spark wouldn't be startled by the talking-dogness, piped up. "I like her. Although she's a _cat_," he shuddered, "she seems nice."

"Spark does seem to be nice. Angel? Any thoughts on her that we should worry about?"

Angel shook her head. "Nope. I say we should give her a chance. She's loyal, and could be a valuable member of the flock."

This could be the fastest a member was accepted into the flock.

Of course Max had to ruin it.

"Guys, the flock is already getting lots of trouble. One more person, who we don't even know is trustworthy, and we could be attracting more trouble than she's worth."

Fang nodded. The rest mumbled unhappy agreement.

Except Iggy. "But does she have any other place to go?"

Max glared at him. "What do you mean?"

He, being blind, didn't notice her ferocious glare. "I mean, if we turned her away, could she live anywhere else? She not only has to hide her wings, but her ears, and her tail. Would she be able to start a life, without our, um, being famous to help hide her weirdness?"

This was… a tough decision to say the least. A year ago, she would've said no flat out. But now… Max had to consider more, what with her letting Total, a flying, _talking_, dog, and the love of his life. Aikla, the non-flying, non-talking, white Malamute. Yeah, that pairing _completely _works out.

Spark was down on the ground, stroking Aikla and occasionally dabbing at a butterfly that flew past. She looked completely innocent.

Yet Max couldn't trust her. Not yet.

Iggy pressed on, "I'll bet that Schools want her. After all, we're avian hybrids. And look how much they tried to catch us."

Nudge added, "And she's an…." She paused for a moment, trying to think. "Avian-Human-Feline hybrid!" She said, finally coming up with a word for it.

Why did they want _another _member? Max had no idea. But Nudge and Angel were giving her puppy eyes. "I'll think about it."

The flock cheered. Then, one-by-one, they streaked down towards earth.

"Hey! I haven't made a decision yet!" The flock was acting like Max had said yes.

Landing lightly, they all faced Spark. She stood up from Aikla, and looked us straight in the eyes. She still looked a bit nervous, though.

"Max will tell you what her decision is!" Gazzy proclaimed loudly. One of Spark's ears twitched.

"And that'll most likely be a no…" Total muttered softly. He knew Max too well.

And then, to all of their shock, she replied, to Total, showing no form of surprise at a dog talking, "I hope not."

Everyone's eyes widened to the size of saucers. Spark looked around, confused, until she dropped her head into her hands with a groan.

"Ugh. I should've known better. NORMAL people don't talk to animals. Normal people don't understand them. Of course, you aren't normal, but still."

She didn't notice the flock still staring dumbstruck at her, at the fact that another non-flock member didn't freak out over Total talking.

"You can WHAT?!?!?"

The exclamation came from Nudge.

Spark shuffled her feet, even tenser than before. "I can, erm, talk to animals. They understand me, I understand them."

"Total speaks human." The comment was Angel's. She alone seemed unfazed. She had probably already read it in Spark's mind, though.

"Ah. That explains why you looked spooked."

At that moment, Max realized that Spark had no place to go. Like the flock. She was used to the weird. Like the flock. And she had all the special skills, all the requirements of being a flock member.

"I've decided about what to do with her."

They all looked at Max intently.

"She can come with us."

* * *

**Okay, guys, I hope you enjoyed that piece of writing that was incredibly hard to write. I don't like 3****rd**** person anymore…..**

**Anyway, the rest will probably be in Sparks POV. Remember, Read and Review!**


	5. Chapter 5

I tried no to smile at everyone crowding around me to congratulate me on joining the flock. Happiness welled up inside of me. I was finally accepted.

Iggy came over and touched my wing. I snatched it away. "What the heck are you doing?!"

Max explained, "Iggy's blind. He can feel colors, though, and he's figuring you out so her can identify you by your feathers. Like he can everyone else in the flock."

"Oh."

"Hm. Interesting. They feel black, but also gold at the same time."

I ignored him.

"Hey," The little blond boy called. I think his name was Gazzy or something. "Shouldn't we tell your mom about this, Max?"

She nodded. "Okay, gang, move out!"

We took off. It was my first time flying in a group, other than with a bunch of birds. I was super-extra-careful not to whap anyone with my wing. I had thirteen feet of muscle and feathers for a wingspan.

It wasn't the biggest one in the flock, though. Max's wings had to be fourteen feet across, and Fang and Iggy's wings were almost fifteen, sixteen feet wide.

I flew in the back, my wing-noise going to my ears as a pleasant thrumming. The rest of the flocks wing-noises beat against my ears, too.

The flight lasted only a few minutes. Fang started the descent into a patch of forest, carrying Aikla. I could see a house not far from where we landed.

As soon as we all touched down, Max turned and said, "Ok, we're a little way away from my mom's house. We'll figure out what to say to her, and we can get to know Spark more."

Yay. Twenty Question time.

"Do you have a last name? Do you have claws? Do you-" I placed my hand over Nudge's mouth to quiet her insistent and fast questioning.

"Well, I sorta have a last name. I use 'Felis' sometimes. I usually use 'Charge' more."

Gazzy's eyes lit up. "Oh, so you're called Spark Charge?"

"Hey, she could be a sister of Max," Iggy realized, "Maximum Charging Off Ride, Spark Charge, it makes sense."

Max growled and spun around. I was getting kinda mad, too, and I said, "I do not charge off!"

Gazzy shouted worriedly, "Watch out Iggy, she has fangs!"

Fang turned to Max. "She has a bunch of me?" he joked.

Huh. He actually speaks.

"In case you haven't noticed, Gaz, I can't watch out. I'm blind," Iggy commented dryly.

I added for good measure, "And I do NOT have fangs." Then I grinned as I tensed the muscles in my fingers that make my claws slide out, holding it up so they all could see. "But I have claws!"

Nudge and Gazzy let out a slight yip of surprise (I had no idea they could make that noise) and leaped away.

Oh. Right.

"Oops. Sorry, I forgot that most people don't have claws, much less two-inch ones."

Angel stared at me curiously. "They can get to two-inches?"

I nodded. "Yup. I prefer to keep them at one-inch if I have them extended, though. I could snag a claw more easily, otherwise, and that is called painful."

"It feels like pulling a fingernail off?"

I stared at Nudge. "I have those too, you know." I showed her my tiny fingernails. I didn't have much of them because I needed room for the claws. "It feels worse. Plus, claws take longer to grow back. Anyway, where have you lost a fingernail?!?"

She blushed and stared at the ground. "A, um, fight."

Ah. Figures.

My sensitive nose picked up the smells of the house we were approaching. Soil, human, a hint of chemicals, and something extremely tantalizing. It smelled a bit familiar.

Where had I smelled that before?

I could see the house from where I was, a white spot in the middle of the dark green and black forest. Someone seemed to be moving around in there.

Max strode confidently up and opened the door, the flock following her inside. I was the last one to go except for Angel. I took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

"Mom!" Max yelled to the house. I smelled two more humans, female. Did I mention I have a cat sense of smell?

"You can call her Dr. Martinez," whispered Angel to me.

A medium heighted, slightly Hispanic-looking woman turned a corner, and saw the flock standing there, waiting. I assumed she was "Mom" or Dr. Martinez.

"Hi Max. I thought you'd be out longer than you were. What-" She cut off as she saw me.

I realized my wings were visible, and my ears and tail were in full sight. Oops.

Max cleared her throat when Dr. Martinez continued to stare at my wings, ears, tail, the usual.

She shook her head, like she had water in her ears. "Right. Ok, Max, what's going on?"

I have to admit, she sounded mom-like.

Max waved her hand in my direction. "This is Spark. She's a… feline-avian-human hybrid."

"… I can see that."

"And she's going to join the flock."

I felt sorry for Dr. Martinez. She was getting so many shocks today. I think we gave her too much.

Once again she was frozen with surprise.

"Right. I'm going to introduce her to Ella now. See ya at dinner." Max simply came over to me and steered me down a hall. "Stay here. I'm going to give Ella a warning. I think we scared Mom too much…"

She opened the door quietly, calling, "Ella. I have someone I want you to meet."

"Really? Bring her in, then!"

I padded inside to see a girl, around mine or Max's age, looking at us eagerly. She stopped and blinked hard for a minute when she saw me.

"She's a… Flying cat-girl?!" Ella managed to sputter out.

I beamed at her. "That's exactly what I call myself! I didn't think anyone else would get that."

"Ok, then…"

She looked at the ground, then looked up at me again. Making up her mind, she walked hesitantly closer, 'til I could see her brown eyes staring at me in wonder.

She reached out, and what she did next made me hate the whitecoats more than ever for grafting a fuzzy, black cat's DNA into me.

Ella decided to pet my ears.

Here's a look into my mind; WHAT THE HECK SHE PET ME?!?!!?!??!

She mumbled, "They're so soft…"

I suppose I should take that as a compliment. I always keep my wings, tail, and ears in neat order.

But still. I. Am. Not. A. House. Pet.

I had to suppress a growl when Ella withdrew her hand and stepped back. Hopefully, she wouldn't pet my ears again.

* * *

**Okay, that's it for chapter five! As you can see, Spark does not like her ears pet. Nor her tail pulled. Anyway, her profile is on my profile, so check it out!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay, here's Chapter Six! And, to answer lunareclipse3's comment, no, she is not tempted to eat herself. Would **_**you **_**eat yourself? No? Then Spark wouldn't. She doesn't mind chicken, though…**

* * *

After the embarrassing Ella-pet-my-ears incident, Dr. Martinez called us down for dinner. I assume she got over the shock of me, with the cat parts and stuff. Wait 'til she sees me talk to animals.

I went after the flock, washing my hand with some funny smelling stuff. Soap. I usually use a clean stream, and some moss to dry my hands.

I went into the room they call a kitchen, and saw a bunch of chairs, surrounding a table. That wasn't what caught my attention though.

On the table was a mountain of food. FOOD! I was starving. I hadn't eaten since that morning, and as if to confirm it, it growled. Nudge and Angel giggled.

There was meat, some hard taco shells, some soft torillas, lettuce, tomatoes…. the list went on and on….

I padded over and sat down. Dr. Martinez eyed me, and chuckled.

I was offended. "What did I do?"

She shook her head. "I was just wondering how scientists managed to get two other animals DNA into you. And I'm a vet."

Huh. How appropriate.

As soon as she said "Dig in!" I got as much food as possible. Flying takes a lot of calories and energy.

The rest of my new flock was eating their food and chatting. I was too busy nomming at it to really join in, besides "Mmnf!"

I was stuffed. Not only had I eaten the most food I've ever had in my life, after dinner, Dr. Martinez brought out the source of the tantalizing familiar smell. Max explained to me that they were chocolate-chip cookies.

I ate seven of them. Ella and the rest of the flock practically had to fight me and Max for them.

Afterwards, Dr. Martinez made a decision that was extremely brave; she took me, Nudge, and Angel shopping. Well, the original plan was for only me and her to go (I needed new clothes badly), but Nudge wouldn't shut up from her relentless chatter unless she went to, so obviously Dr. Martinez let her. Then Angel decided she was going to join the party and come too.

Angel explained that using her mind-control (she is freaking me out; I mean, mind control and mind reading with a flying six-year old? That's almost as weird as a flying cat-girl who can talk to animals) she could make people 'ignore' (forget in Angelese) my ears, tail, wings, and raggedy clothes.

So the party of two doubled in size.

So this is the set-up; a hyper-active, hyper-talkative Nudge is leading the way, down a busy street side-walk to a store full of clothes. Angel is quieter, but she's monitoring everyone's thoughts and pressing the delete button on their memories of my ears, tail, and rags that are my clothes. I was just practically skipping behind Nudge because I'm doing something normal-human-girl-ish. And poor, poor Dr. Martinez had to go through this all. I think she bit off more that she could chew with us.

And now I'm just thinking that I just narrated one of the longest paragraphs ever :D

*ahem*

So we bounce/skip/walked into the store, where Nudge went over to the racks faster than the normal eye could follow. Angel, Dr. Martinez, and I followed more slowly. _We_ actually walked.

And so, to save you from the hyperactive girliness that followed, and to keep those guys out there from crying out in anguish at the girls gone crazy with shopping, I shall cut short the details of our trip.

So, in all, I came home wearing a gray tank top, sneakers, a black, ruffly skirt that I put some athletic shorts under (I decided on the skirt because I can still fight easily, and it feels better on my tail), and something weird. It looked somewhat like cut-off pant legs. Nudge had fashioned them out of, well, cut off pant legs. They went from my elbow to a little past my wrist. Nudge had gotten a couple of extremely short belt thing to go around my wrist and just below my elbow.

It flared out after these points. Nudge explained to me afterwards that if I was getting ready for a fight, I could pull these down a bit and the flare would hide my unsheathed claws. It actually felt good, and they were easy to pull down and up. I have no name for them whatsoever. Sorry.

I also was the proud owner of a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a bright red jacket that would hide my wings.

I came home, toting my prize like a hunter brought prey back to his family. The rest of the flock+Ella stared. Except for Iggy. He's blind. I don't think they were staring at me. I think the were looking at the mountainous pile of shopping bags Nudge and Angel were carrying.

In the midst of all this, Dr. Martinez slipped away. Oh, she had fun, laughing with us, making suggestions, etc. But going shopping with three hyper flying girls really takes it out of you. I think she was going to get about twenty headache pills and then crash.

Then, out of the blue, the phone rang. I heard Dr. Martinez groan slightly and haul herself over to the phone. There goes the nap.

I couldn't here what was being said on the opposite side of the phone, just that noise all the adults seem to make in Charlie Brown. But Dr. Martinez was replying, "Yeah," "I'll see," "I'll try to get there on time".

I didn't realize that one of my ears was cocked towards the conversation. The flock was looking at me curiously. They probably didn't have cat hearing, I realized.

"What is it?" asked Gazzy.

"I think you'll find out in a minute…"

Sure enough, Dr. Martinez walked into the room a minute later. "Hey, guys, girls, cat-girl, I just got some news."

Automatically everyone stopped chatting and looked at the woman.

"The CSM needs me in Miami. I'm flying out, on a plane, Spark, tomorrow. They would like you to come, too, but they don't need you for another two weeks." The CS- what?

"So… this means what?" It was Max, the flock leader, 's question.

"Me and Ella are going out tomorrow. I was thinking you guys could fly there, follow more slowly, and still get there. I know how much you hate planes."

Max thought for a minute, before turning to the rest of us. "You up for a long flight, to Miami?"

We all answered, "YES!"

She turned to Dr. Martinez. "Ok, then, it's settled. You fly out on a plane tomorrow, we follow on our own wings."

"Great! I tell John about your decision."

But even for my confidence and excitement at the coming flight, I was feeling a tinge nervous. Was I up to snuff for a flight like this?

* * *

**Ok, that's Chapter Six! I shortened the torture of Dr. Martinez, heh-heh… I mean, I like her character, but she's fun to torture with Nudge, Angel, a perplexed Spark, and shopping…. Anyway, please review, you can get a piece of PM's cookie, and I like to know when people read and like my story.**

**So, Spark likes tacos, is wearing a skirt with shorts underneath (thank goodness Iggy-little perv- is blind), and knows what Charlie Brown is! Find out what happens next in---- SPARK- CHAPTER SEVEN!!!!! (I know, epic title *fake sarcasm*)**


	7. Chapter 7

I woke up the next morning to…. Silence. Except for the flock breathing. If they weren't breathing that would be very bad.

After I checked outside via window, where the sky was lightening, tinges of pink against the black, I did self inventory. After all, I was going on a long flight. I would like all of my key survival parts to be intact.

My wings were clean and feathers pristine. They felt strong and flexible. No kinks in my tail, which I used for balance, and my ears were in excellent working condition. No problems.

Then I checked my claws, my beloved weapons. Oh, dear. They were not in the best of states. I had dried blood on some of them, and dirt on others. I even had some tiny twigs stuck.

This was dumb. So, I did what all great felines do in times when their claws need cleaning.

Silently slipping out of the house, I went to a nice tree, with soft bark and a clean trunk, and sharpened my claws. If you saw me, you'd realized I did this exactly like a cat.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize I was being watched.

Max stood at the door, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

I looked at her in surprise, then checked my claws. Ah, nice and clean. Perfect sharpness, and cleanliness.

Max continued to give me a slightly puzzled look. "Well?"

"I was sharpening my claws."

"You looked like a _cat_."

"I am a cat."

"Only 6% of you!"

"But I still have to sharpen my claws!"

She ran her hand through her hair, obviously frustrated.

I pressed on, "In order to keep my claws sharp and good weapons, I need to clean them."

Again, a raised eyebrow. "I thought you were sharpening them."

I was really mad now. Didn't she see cats do this? "It does _both_. At the same time. That's why cats sharpen their claws. Trees grow back their bark." I decided to address any concern about the state of the tree. "It. Will. Be. Fine."

Max sighed before turning back inside to the house. I just then remembered a piece of advice that the wolf pack had told me; Don't challenge the Alpha. I guess Max was the Alpha. Whoops.

I could already tell that this was going to be a very long flight.

- - -

After my claw sharpening, wing grooming session, I decided breakfast should be ready. I could smell pancakes from the kitchen. I hope it wasn't Max cooking. I heard it was bad. I actually valued my life. I am not emo.

Thank goodness I didn't scent her in the kitchen. Instead, who was there gave me more of a surprise.

Iggy, the blind one, was cooking. Excuse me, _what_?

And nothing was burning.

And the rest of the flock was treating this as normal.

WHHAAAAAAAAATTTTT?!?!?!?!!?

*ahem*

So, eventually, after I get lotsa pancakes and the flock explain that Iggy is the only one of them that can actually cook, I calm down.

And then it's time to go on our epicly long flight from Arizona to Miami. In two weeks. With me, who is not the best long distance flyer, in tow. Also, we'll have Max as leader, who I will probably end up challenging, the silent Fang who seems to talk to Max, the Nudge Channel, Little Miss Mind Reader, the blind guy who can cook, and Gazzy. Curse those scientists for giving me a cat's sensitive nose.

Yep, this was going to go extremely well.

- - - -

"Okay, gang, move out!" Max's call made me stop fingering my backpack. Finally we were on the move.

Max, Fang, and Iggy took off first. The younger flock members followed suit. I was last.

I had a running start, ready to jump high so I could catch the wind in my wings. I ran, leaped….. and managed to trip over a rock just as I got off the ground. Hey, I may be a cat, but I'm not _that_ graceful in normal, non-life threatening situations. So I ended up getting thrown flat on my face just as I was trying to take off. Note to self; That's the _opposite_ way you want to go when you're attempting to fly.

Fang and Max snickered. Nudge openly giggled. And Angel and Gazzy valiantly tried to hold in their laughter. And failed. Even Iggy, who's blind, could have heard the whump that was me tripping.

…And I dearly hope that this is not what the rest of the trip will be like…

But, actually, once I succeeded at getting in the air, nothing of consequence happened. Yet. Emphasis on that one word.

I was happy, soaring through clouds like a bird, a little way away from the flock. Yeah, I sometimes felt like a human, or a cat on the ground. But in the air, I was a sky queen, a majestic golden eagle, made for soaring. I hardly had to flap, because I found some nice currents.

We actually flew for a while. I was getting a little hungry by the time sun-high (noon for humans; I picked that up from Nuri and Nova) came around. I'll bet that the others were more tired than me, cause they had to flap a lot more.

So we were just flying along happily, a tailwind to my, uh, tail, and a lake about fifteen, twenty miles ahead of us. I could see it.

And then, I picked up a strange scent from behind us. It had obviously been carried far on the wind, because it was faint. But the scent was fresh nonetheless. It was…. A strange scent, that was like dogs were to wolves, except with humans. The scent was the wolf.

I sniffed again. Human, but with a tinge of blood and ferocity. And feather-scent. The flock, and birds have feather-scent. Everyone's feather-scent is different. But they all tickle your nose.

I looked over at Angel questioningly. She was concentrating, but she suddenly gasped.

Max was instantly flying close. "What is it?"

Angel looked scared. "M-Geeks."

All I thought was, "What's an M-Geek?"

Angel must've heard my unspoken question, because she answered, "A ninja, sorta. They attacked us not long ago, when we were in our adventures under the sea, and once during an air show."

Okay. So these M-Geekie thingies were bad.

Then Angel proceeded to add to the heightened tension by commenting, "And they have wings."

Well, that's just dandy.

"Can M-Geeks swim?" The question was Gazzy's.

Iggy brightened. "I'll bet that we can dive under the lake, wait for them all to come in after us, and then they won't know not to swim with wings. Then, they won't be able to fly so well, and we can escape."

"And, if we need, we can bring it to a fight." Fang spoke. Weird.

Now, I had a question. "Can these things die if they bleed too much?"

Hey, I fight using my claws. I need to know how they die.

"Yep." Thank you, Nudge.

"Okay, guys, aim for the lake. The plan is, we swim under, and dive out again." Max's plan sounded great. Except for one teensy little problem.

"WHAT?!"

"I said-"

"I know what you said! But I-" my voice faltered.

"What?"

"I…. can't swim…." I was actually terrified of water.

We could see the M-Things if we looked back now. And they were gaining on us. FAST. And our only escape option is to swim. Well, there goes that plan. So, what could I do now? Spazz time!

- - - - -

**Oh, dear, Spark can't swim….. That could be a problem….**

**So, review, tell me what you liked and what can be improved!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Okay, sorry for the wait, anyway, here's Chapter Eight! By the way, if you need to see a picture of Spark, check out my profile pic! It's of her.**

Setting; Flying for our lives right over a big, humongous lake.

Enemy; Some M-Geekie thingamabob that look like slightly short adult human men that are identical. And smell a bit like blood. Rippable.

My Position in All of This; getting forcefully yanked downwards, towards the lake, but an angry Max.

Did I mention I can't swim?

As if my prayer had been answered, an Angel saved me from possible drowning.

"WAIT!!!! M-Geeks can _swim!_ Remember the sub?" A million thanks, Angel!

Now, remember, I had only been a member of the flock for three days. I had no idea whether they were talking about a Subway kind of sub, or a "we-all-live-in-a-yellow-submarine" kind of sub. I'm guessing the last one.

So, to my utter relief, Max released me and angled towards the shore.

"GUYS! I want you to land and get ready to fight! There are only about fifty of them!" she hollered.

And she finally let me fly by myself. She had been dragging me down.

So the flock aimed downwards like arrows while I calculated our odds. 50 M-Geeks against 7 of us. A bit uneven, I'd say. At least we didn't have to look out for Total. He had gone with Aikla and Dr. Martinez.

As if to answer my question, Fang called, "Only fifty? Against us seven? This'll be easy."

EASSYYY?!?!?!

But I'll admit, I wonder if he has mind-reading abilities like Angel….

No. That's too scary a thought.

We all landed, almost simultaneously. And turned and looked. Well, everyone except Iggy looked.

And it turns out the M-Geeks were about to land! On top of us.

Skittering backwards, I made sure that I was facing the lake, not running into it. Then I unsheathed my deadly, two-inch-long claws. Only to one inch, to prevent snagging. Yes, just what I need in the heat of battle, my weapons becoming useless and painful.

Thank goodness I had sharpened them this morning.

A quick M-Geek spotted me, and decided to charge. I gulped nervously, then threw away nervousness for bloodlust. Showtime, folks.

My first victim ran at me, fast as a flock member. I think he looked like a ninja. Maybe Fang was a ninja….

Anyway, I ignored these commentaries by happily and easily slicing down his face with a quick and precise slash from my claws.

And then a couple of his buddies had to get involved. And now, I had to fight three of these ninja-Geeks. _At the same time._

Unfortunately for them, my claws worked just fine.

I slashed ones throat, then spun around and kicked one in the ankles, before turning and scathing the last one's belly _deep_ before kicking it.

Anywhoo, I disposed of those three, although their wings, I'll admit, made maneuvering a tad more difficult. But I found another one, deciding I was a worthy target. Joy oh joy. I was getting a little tired. Remember, dear readers, I am not known for my "fabulous" stamina.

By this time I had seen the rest of the flock fight. Mostly punch punch, kick kick stuff. No elegance, like I had with my claws.

Aaaand Max was finishing off her last M-Geek, Fang had his own pair he was easily dealing with, and the rest of the flock had ganged up on four poor Geeks.

So they dealt with them quickly, and found me fighting my personal opponent. I was dodging his attacks mostly. I wanted the flock to see moi in action.

So I began with a classic move. A quick but shallow cut to the throat, then a spin, followed by another slash. I leapt up and kicked him/it. Meanwhile, on the up part of the jumped, I threw my hands wide, and on the fall part of the jump, I brought them together, hard, quick, and claws unsheathed, right onto his already bloody throat.

He dropped dead.

I hope I don't turn into a serial killer, but I'll admit, that was fun!

…And my new flock was staring at me, mouths open with shock. Oh dear. All my adrenaline drained away. I think I scared them…

Gazzy recovered first. "Spark…. That was AWESOME!!!"

Huh.

Then Nudge pointed out a small fact as to their shock at handling my opponents.

"Look at our M-Geeks. Then yours…" She said the fewest words I had ever heard her speak.

I obeyed like a good little squip. What is a squip, anyway?

The flock's victims were bruised and broken, only a little bloody. I then turned to mine.

Oh.

My opponents happened to be shredded. Blood everywhere. A few bruises. But…. Still shredded…

I then looked at my claws, which still were unsheathed. They were red, with bits of skin and gore underneath them. Yuck. I realized that the M-Geeks had a mechanical inside, sort of.

"Oh…" I said…

Angel looked at me, then unexpectedly grinned. "I think we got a good new member."

Max nodded. She and Fang alone had stayed unfazed. "Spark, please put away your claws."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"They're dirty! I need to clean them."

"Didn't you do that this morning?"

"That was before the fight, and they got all bloody and disgusting!"

Meanwhile, the flock's heads were going back and forth, from me to Max and back again. I could practically see them thinking, _Max found a verbal sparring partner. For once._

No, I did not spontaneously mutate while my argument with Max continued. Their faces said it all.

Now, it twas the night before day two of our journey to Florida, and all around the campfire, everyone was cooking food on sticks, even a mouse.

… What? I invited a mouse who's main food supply we accidentally destroyed when we landed. I gave him more food and invited him to dinner. The flock's faces were… let's just say I never have a camera when I need one.

So, the younger kids and Iggy were chatting excitedly to one another, Max and Fang were quietly talking, and I was happily nomming a fish. All in the peaceful stting of a clearing surrounded by lotsa forest, under a star-filled sky. Ah, this was the life. It reminded me of living with Nuri and Nova, out in the wild, away from humans.

I had just finished eating my fish, impatiently waiting for another one to finish cooking, when a soft heat started at the tips of my fingers.

I sighed. I had had this heat thing where my fingertips glow (like a firefly) and get warmer than normal since a couple months before I got out of the Institute. I had no idea what it was, but it was annoying not to know. It happened about once or twice a week.

Gazzy paused in what he was saying to Nudge and Angel to stare at my now glowing fingers. "Uh… Spark? You do know that your fingers all glowing, right?" he asked.

Now me and my wonderous and supremely strange glow-in-the-dark fingertips were center stage in the flocks attention. _Great_.

"Yeah… It's done this for a while now…" I replied.

Then suddenly, the glowing warmth rippled up, to my shoulders, to my ear tips, down to my tail-tip. It was coming in glowing bands from my fingers. Even my wings were caught up in it.

"Whoa..." said Max.

I dropped my fish-stick in shock. There goes the fish.

Suddenly, one band starting at my fingers led something very strange across me. It… made my hands into paws, sorta, and they shrunk. Then the world got bigger when it spread to my head. What the heck was going on?

This ribbon on light and heat was the last one my fingers had made, and as it traveled down my back, I swear my clothes melted into my skin. Not a pleasant feeling, folks.

Then, after it had finished doing whatever then heck it was to my toes and tail-tip, I found I was sitting like an animal. A cat or dog.

This entire process of whatever the glows did to me took barely a second.

What in the world had happened?

…And now, every single one of the flock was staring at me, eyes as big as dinner plates.

"What happened? What is it?" I asked frantically.

Nudge gulped and pulled out a mirror. Why exactly she flies around with that in her backpack, I don't know.

I padded up to her. Wait, why was I on four feet? At least I still had my flickable tail and ears. And thankfully, I could feel my wings on my back.

When I looked in Nudge's mirror, even with the flock's eyes on me, I nearly dropped to the ground in shock.

Yes, I still had my black cat ears and tail. Yes, I still had my golden-black wings. But…

I had… fur. And paws. And a muzzle. And I was smaller. Cat-size.

WAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! I HAD TRANSFORMED INTO A CAT!!!!!

…**And now we know what Spark's second ability is. Shape-shifting.**

**Anyway, Christmas and my birthday are coming up soon. You could give me a present by giving me a review…**


	9. Chapter 9

I believe I spazzed. It was not pretty. It took all of the flock ten minutes to finally catch me, while I was running around the cam wildly while screaming my head off. And then it took Angel to practically sit on me to calm me down.

Turns out it was Fang who took my now furry face into his hands. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Spark. Calm _down._ We'll figure out a way to get you back to normal."

That calmed me down. I pawed at Angel to let me up, and I sat u when she did. I took a deep breath, and began to speak. "Sorry guys. Anyone have any-" I broke off. I was a cat now. They wouldn't be able to understand me.

"Uh, Spark?" Iggy started, "We can understand you. Like we do Total."

I sighed in relief. Max continued what I was saying. "Okay, any ideas on how to get Spark into a less cat-like state?"

Angel raised her hand.

"Yes?"

She looked directly at me, and said, "Remember my shape changing ability? Well, I just focus on my original self, and I transform back. It's how I go to my other shapes as well. I simply focus."

"Hey, that might actually work!" I proclaimed, then focused hard on me as me normally.

The glowing started at my… paws, again, and a ribbon spread up. I felt myself growing, going up on two legs.

Before I knew it I was back to normal! With my clothes on. Please, no pervertedness.

"YES!" I jumped with happiness.

Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge clapped. Angel cocked her head to the side curiously. "I wonder… is this another spontaneous mutation/ability?"

That stopped my celebrating. "What?!"

Max explained, "The flock has a tendency to… develop new abilities… spontaneously…"

Oh. "Oh."

Gazzy suddenly started asking, "Can you do that again?"

Over. And over. I think he's been around Nudge too much.

I sighed. Gazzy wouldn't stop unless I tried to be a cat again. Worse, Nudge had jumped on the bandwagon.

I concentrated on the glowing bands that began on my fingers, and they appeared. I then thought about my cat self, black fur with blue eyes, a pair of gold black wings, and flecks of pale gold throughout my fur.

Almost immediately I felt my self shrink as the band spread over me. When it was done I looked around, and leapt up on a stump next to Angel.

She let out a delighted cry and ran a soft hand along my spine. It felt good.

Max and Fang noticed then that I was back to being a feline. They had missed the whole Gazzy begging scene.

"Spark," Fang began, "We just fixed this. Why did you bring the problem back?"

"I can control it now!" I yowled happily, my tail waving, "See!"

With that I leapt off the stump and transformed back to human. Fang's eyebrow's raised, but he didn't say anything.

Iggy asked, "Can you transform into other animals? Like a wolf?"

"Or a fish!" Nudge interrupted.

I eyed her. "I'll… try a wolf first." I thought of the wolf pack that had taken me in right after I escaped from the Institute. I had stayed for two weeks.

I felt the glowing band rippled over me. This time, I didn't shrink as much, but I went onto all fours. My tail shortened and became fluffier, my claws cam out, shortened, and dulled. My face and nose elongated into a muzzle, and fur rippled over me as my clothes merged into my skin.

Voila. I was a wolfie. I turned to see my pelt. Still had wings. They were about the same size as usual, I noted. My pelt was a dark gray, with the occasional golden fleck and a paler belly.

"What color are my eyes? What does my face look like?" I asked Nudge.

She giggled for some reason. "Your face looks like a wolf's." Ha, ha, very funny. "You have cream rimmed eyes, and a paler muzzle, but the rest of your face is dark gray. Your eyes are blue, and there's one golden fleck on your nose."

What? My eyes were _blue_?! Wolves eyes are naturally yellow, or gold! Only the pups had blue eyes. This was beyond weird…

I took a deep breath and shifted to a human form once more. I turned to Iggy. "Okay, now for a fish."

I concentrated on a fish. Nothing.

I turned to Iggy and shrugged. "I can't be a fish."

Gazzy said, "Try a bird!"

I thought of my wings. Golden-Eagle wings. I felt myself shrink, and my arms were thrown back to merge with my wings. Weird…

Feathers rippled across me, and I now had talons. I could be a bird, too.

Nudge and Angel grinned. "Cool."

Gazzy interrupted, "But your eyes are still blue."

Huh. Guess that will never change.

I morphed back and found Fang and Max watching me. I said the most appropriate sentence I could think of at the time.

"Whoopee for spontaneous mutation…"

**Sorry that one's a bit short. I hope you enjoyed Spark's new power. To make things clear, she can transform into birds and mammals. Not humans, not frogs, not fish.**

**But, what do you think about my choice for her new power? (it could have been spazzing, as seen in the beginning of the chapter, but can you blame her?)**

**Tell me, via review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A Few Days Later, When the Flock Has Almost Arrived at Their Destination…**

* * *

"Ma-ax…" Nudge began. Oh dear, here comes the Nudge Channel, as dubbed by Max herself, "I'm hungry. When are we going to get there? Do you think your Mom'll have food for us?"

"I don't know, Nudge."

"But I'm hungry!"

"…So you've said…"

Then Gazzy piped up, "I'm hungry too!"

"And me!"

Angel has joined the bandwagon. To avoid the incoming babble traffic, I angled my wings downward, away from the now annoyed Max.

Peering into the distance, I could see a city on the horizon. Miami.

"Miami ahoy!" I yelled, leading the way very enthusiastically. I was hungry too, but I don't think having a bitten-off head would help me so... no telling Max…

"YES! Finally!" Max shouted. I think she was relieved to keep the younger kids from harassing her anymore.

Everyone picked up the pace, energy somewhat renewed at the sight of their destination.

As if he read my mind, Gazzy imitated a GPS. His power is one of the stranger ones of the flock, even compared to Iggy feeling colors. "Go straight for 50 miles. Then go down at the building." He paused. "Ma-ax…"

"WHAT?!"

"Uh, do you know where exactly we're supposed to be meeting your mom?"

Well, this threw a wrench into the plan. "Well, we can always wing it!" I called cheerfully.

Iggy laughed, then replied, "Yes, wandering around the streets in Miami is going to help our cause how exactly?"

"Uh…"

"Course, we've always had _such good times _in Miami."

What in the world was he talking about?

Soon, we arrived at our destination, as Gazzy proclaimed in his GPS voice. Unfortunately, we still had no idea of where to go.

"Max? You don't happen to have a cell phone to call your mom with, do you?" Angel asked.

"Hold on, lemme check…" Max rummaged through her backpack, before coming up with her hand full of… thin air.

"There goes that plan," Fang remarked.

"Like I said earlier, we could wing it!" I suggested again.

They ignored me.

"Angel? Do you think you can help?" Max asked.

"Oh! I can read people's minds and see if they saw Dr. Martinez, and where she was going."

"Yep."

Awww… No fun of wandering around aimlessly?

We were, actually, wandering around aimlessly, except for Angel, who probed every passing person's mind for sightings of Dr. Martinez. I happily bounced around, cheerful as usual, or at least away from high amounts of tension.

As I walked amongst the flock and crowd, I realized that this might be one of my favorite places. The sun beat down warm, and it was cloudless in the sky. Perfect weather for a nap.

I longed to leap into the great blue sky, to spread my wings and let them shine gold in the sun! That would be a sight to see.

My thoughts of playing with the sunlight were interrupted by Angel. Her brow furrowed, then she said, "I found them! They're over there!" She pointed to a tall building, a boring tan color, with lots of palm trees around it.

"I don't see them."

Angel whacked me, "She's inside the 'boring tan building'. Of course you can't see them!"

"Then why did you say that?"

"Because-"

Max intervened, saying, "Guys, calm down. It's not worth it. Seriously."

Eventually we made our way over to the building. We pushed aside the doors, and saw a lady with brown hair typing something at the front desk. Aside from the occasional other person, the building was empty.

Max made her way towards the lady, all leaderly like, with Fang following. The rest of the flock fell into step on the side and behind her. It reminded me of a wolf pack. Max was the Alpha, Fang was obviously the Beta, then the rest of the kids as normal pack members. Wait, where did this put me?

"Hey. We're here to see Dr. Martinez," Max said. When the lady gave her a questioning look she replied, "I'm her daughter. Maximum Ride. Maybe you've heard of me?"

_Aaaand_ there goes her nice, subtleness. Max was getting cranky. I think she was hungry too.

The lady looked puzzled for a moment, then her face cleared up. "Oh. Okay, take a seat, I'll phone up to her conference. It'll be a minute."

So we all went to a couch on the side of the room. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.

"It's been a minute," I hissed, irritated. The lady was still talking on the phone! How long did it take to phone a conference room and tell 'em we're coming!?

"Relax, Spark," Fang replied, not bothering to move from his position.

"Miss Impatient…" Gazzy muttered.

We waited. AGAIN. Suddenly Max looked up, straight at me. "Keep your ears and tail hidden, okay? Like you have them now. Other than Mom, they haven't seen you yet, or even heard of you."

She paused, then continued, "And no shape-shifting. They'd freak out more than necessary. Even my mom's not seen it."

Then, thank goodness, I heard the lady say "Okay, thanks," and hang up the phone. She looked at our group and called, "Okay, they told me to send you on up. They're in Conference Room 7. It's on Floor 8. You can take the elevator."

Max led the flock over to a pair of metal doors that had a few buttons on it. **(AN; Now remember, Spark has lived most of her life in a cage. Then she spent nine and a half months in the wild. She is not familiar with a few things such as elevators.) **I watched in fascination as Max pressed one and it glowed. The doors slid open with a soft ding.

She stepped inside, and the rest of the flock followed suit. Even me.

Inside, it was very small. It had a rough carpeted floor, light cream walls, and on the same wall as the doors, a large panel. Filled with buttons!

Max pressed a button that said '8' on it. The doors slid closed with another ding. Then we began to rise.

Whoa. I turned to Max. "So… This is an elevator?"

She gave me a very strange look. "…Yes…"

"It's slow."

"I know."

"Why don't we just fly up?"

"The other people will get freaked out."

"But it's faster!"

"…" Max dropped her head into her hands with exasperation. The rest of the flock was trying to suppress giggles.

Suddenly, the floor jolted to a stop. I nearly lost my balance, cause I wasn't expecting it. The doors slid open with yet another ding, and it revealed a hallway. We all stepped out, and Max set off purposefully towards a door labeled 'Conference Room 7'.

She pushed the door open, and made her way inside, a couple of greetings announcing her arrival. The rest of the flock followed again. I went through the doorway and came face-to-face with a large room, again painted with cream, with a giant, ebony colored wooden table in the center. Many chairs were pushed around it, all the spinny kind, I noted with pleasure.

Most of the chairs had people in them. All adults, except for Ella who sat in a dark chair next to her mom.

A man stood up from his place at the head of the table and came to greet us. "Max, how nice to see you again."

He looked at the rest of the flock, smiling, until he came to me.

Uh-oh.

Confusion spread across his face. "Uh, Max? Who is this?"

Max gestured towards me. "This is our newest flock member," she said, "This is Spark."


	11. Chapter 11

Everyone stared.

Okay, everyone but the flock, Ella, and Dr. Martinez stared at the supposed new flock member. Me.

"Uh…. Hello, Spark, and welcome to the CSM." Finally the man who had stood up spoke. He moved a little closer to observe me, and stopped, puzzlement spreading across his face. "Wait… where are your ears?"

Oh. Crap. Well, I do have ears, but I had my CAT ears hidden at the moment, and I didn't have human ones… just one pair of ears for me. So what this dude saw was my spiky hair flopped over the side of my head, and no human ears. The flock had human ears. Mine were cat's, and they were hidden in my hair, and they looked like more spikes.

This was going to end well. Might as well get this over with.

I looked over towards Dr. Martinez who nodded, telling me to go ahead and show the world my lovely cat bits!

"Um, they're right… here…" I said slowly, then pricked my ears up, so all the boardroom could see. Then I unhid my tail. I waved it to show it off.

Loud gasps and more than one squeal filled the room, and my ears twisted back uncomfortably.

A young, red-haired woman towards whom Max was giving quite some glarage recovered first, saying, "You do have wings, right?"

"Yep," I replied, and unfurled them. The shock was bit less. Weirdos.

Nudge, oh Nudge who speaks out at the right times all the time, piped up, "Dr. Martinez! Spark got a new power while we were coming!"

Max's mom raised one eyebrow curiously, "Really? What is it?"

"Uh…" I turned to a random member of the CSM. "You."

He looked up, startled. "Me?"

"Yes you. Pick a random mammal or bird."

"… a… tiger?" he said slowly, extremely confused.

"Sure."

Max spoke up, addressing the board, "Everyone, please don't scream any louder than necessary." More people looked confused, but they nodded anyway.

I took a deep breath, found the glow, and quickly transformed into a tiger. And, yep, people screamed.

I caught my reflection in a big ornamental mirror on the side of the room. What do you know, I was a white tiger, with my distinctive blue eyes.

Unfortunately, people were still yelling in shock and fear at seeing a girl transform into a tiger. I piped up, "Hey, guys? Stop panicking!"

No one heard me.

Thank goodness for Max. "HEY!" she yelled. Very, very loudly.

Everyone froze. Simultaneously.

I tried to relieve panic by shifting back to human form. "Look, I can transform into mammals and birds, but that doesn't mean I'm going to eat you!" I hollered.

Very, very slowly everyone shuffled back to their seats. And semi-calmed down.

Dr. Martinez, Ella, and the red head bane of Max's life were the least freaked out. They didn't spazz quite so much.

Now, I'm not saying they didn't spazz…

So we resumed the earlier position, the flock and me standing at the front of the room, the ruffled CSM members at the table, looking at us, still slightly shocked.

Then the strange and slightly annoying looking red-head asked me, "So, you can only transform into birds and mammals?"

"Yep."

"What about dinosaurs?"

"A WHAT?!" What the heck was she talking about? I knew what a dinosaur was, but I thought those were lizards…. Reptiles…

"A dinosaur. There's a new theory out that they may actually be birds, not reptiles."

"…"

"And…"

I decided to break the news to her. "I need to know what one looks like." I had a pretty good idea from some of my days at the Institute of what the monsters looked like, but I couldn't be sure.

"…"

"And….?"

Max interrupted, "I don't think this is a good time to test Spark's ability." She had a point. Then she turned and looked at the man who had stood up originally. "So, what's the reason we were brought down here for?"

The man who was still unnamed to me looked up, then shuffled through a file he had picked up, "Oh, right,_ that_."

The flock exchanged exasperated and slightly suspicious looks. They obviously knew who he was, and at least semi-trusted him.

Then, after finding whatever he was looking for, he looked up at us. He smiled, saying, "We would like you to go to Africa."

I grinned and leaped up. Around me various members of the flock, mainly the younger kids, were leaping up too, quite enthusiastically. I yelled along with them.

Africa! Home to so many magnificent animals! Lions, hyenas, jackals, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, wildebeest, rhinos, elephants, hippos… I was mainly thinking about the mammals, but the list went on and on for a really long time….

"I don't know. Why would we be going?" MAX! You're practically raining on my parade! You _have_ to protest when someone gives you a free chance to go to the wonderful ecosystem that is Africa!

"Well, the CSM is going to raise awareness about the need to protect the natural world, starting in Africa."

Max was silent for a second. In that second we pounced.

"Maxmaxmaxmax! Please!"

"I wanna go to Africa!"

"You got to let us go, Max!"

My turn. "PLEASE, Max? I wanna see all the aminals, and lions and gazelle and-" Iggy smacked his had across my mouth to stop me from continuing and sounding freakishly like Nudge.

"Shut up, please."

Well, I wasn't going to take that sitting down. "Make me."

"I will."

"I'd like to see you try."

Fang coughed slightly.

Oh. We were still in front of the CSM.

Big whoops.

Dr. Martinez then asked, "So, will you come to Africa?"

Me, Nudge, and Angel all turned to Max and gave her puppy/Bambi eyes. Max couldn't resist those!

She was about to speak, then looked at me and said, "Spark? You need to work on the Bambi eyes. It's not working for me."

Darn.

But she looked over at the CSM, the flock, and the dude whose name I still didn't know, and said, "Sure. Why not?"

**- - - - **

**And, that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this! I'd appreciate it if you reviewl.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer; I do not own Maximum Ride, nor its characters. Spark is mine, all mine!**

**Sorry about not updating in who knows how long! I was busy at first, then I decided to do an animated movie for English. . Animation takes quite a while to do so….**

**Anyway, I'm back!**

* * *

After much cheering and jumping, the flock and I were directed to a 'safe house'. I dunno about the rest of the flock, but I thought it looked about as safe as a den about to collapse. It was just a normal house…. But I think Max agreed with me. Maybe Fang, too, I couldn't tell.

Dr. Martinez went out to buy food, pizzas to be specific. She brought Gazzy and our humongous orders with her. Gazzy apparently was going to check for bombs in the pizza. I gotta remind myself to ask the rest of the flock by the apparent exploding pizza incident was about.

_I _think that Gazzy just wanted to be the first to get his food.

Angel giggled when I thought that. Her mind reading abilities are creeping me out, and are annoying.

Gah!

Gazzy came home, chewing on a piece of pizza and toting the box to it in his other hand. Then Dr. Martinez came through the door with the rest of the boxes. Gazzy stepped to the side very quickly. The rest of us attacked.

Sometime later, we all were sitting on various pieces of furniture in the room. As for me, I was perched on the arm of a couch, munching my pepperoni and anchovy pizza **(Eww, anchovies… but Spark likes almost any fish)**. The others were giving my anchovies funny looks. I didn't get why most people don't like them. They tasted like fish, which are good. People eat fish, right?

Ahem.

I was starving. It turns out that shifting used a heck of a lot of calories and energy. I had been so hyped up on adrenaline the first night I had discovered my power, I hadn't noticed. After that, 'til that afternoon, I hadn't really used my power.

To tell the truth, I was a little scared of it. Scared if I transformed, and couldn't shift back.

The others were oblivious to my mental rants. Angel had learned early on to stay out…

_*Flashback...*_

_I flew happily through the clouds. Everything was nice, lovely weather, friends, and nobody trying to kill me._

_As if to make my day better, I spotted a small flock of sparrows. With Angel trailing close behind, I glided over to them. Before they could scatter, I said cheerfully, "Hi!"_

_They looked at me, startled, before a the lead sparrow chirped back, "Hello…"_

_With enough of an introduction for me, I began chatting with the birds. Angel got an odd expression on her face, like she had a headache, and blinked fiercely. "What is it?" I asked curiously._

"_Well, I'm reading your mind, which I'm hearing the birds like you do, the bird's thoughts, and my own ears."_

"_How do you hear ears?"_

_Angel whacked me. "I'm hearing the birds tweeting, and you hearing the same birds as if they're human. It's very confusing…"_

"_Glad to be of service…" I muttered, and flew back over to the birds._

_*End Flashback*_

The whacker in question looked at me. "I don't need a reminder of that, Spark."

"Stay out of my head then, nosy. My thoughts are mine alone."

Angel, small and normally innocent and friendly, did not take this remark very well. She looked furious and was about to jump down on me when Brigid (Fang had told me the Glared-at-by-Max-Redhead's name) burst though the door easily.

Didn't that defeat the purpose of the safe house if anyone and everyone could get in?

"The door was unlocked," Brigid said, noticing my confused looks.

Well. That explains a lot.

"I heard you guys were bored."

"From who?"

Brigid gave me another funny look, "Dr. Martinez told me…"

Max was still suspicious. "Still, why did you come down here?"

Meanwhile, Gazzy, Nudge, and Iggy were having a pizza-bit flicking-fight. I snuck quietly over to join them.

"I asked her to." Enter Dr. Martinez.

Max nodded, though it wasn't apparently not a very good reason.

Nudge came over, abandoning the food-fight and poke her nose into a box that Brigid was holding. "What's in there?" she asked curiously.

"Random stuff. We don't want you to blow up the house out of boredom. Mind you this house actually belongs to someone…" The redhead gave a pointed look at Gazzy and Iggy.

They whistled tunelessly and innocently. Fang was nowhere to be seen, but Angel, watching her brother, giggled.

Then, Brigid looked at me expectantly. Oh, joyous occasion, this was going to be good. "Spark," she began, "I still want to see if you can turn into a dinosaur. It would be huge if the world could find out more about them, and I think it would do you some good for some practice with shape-shifting." This girl never gave up, did she?

Max replied for me. "Yeah, I think we'd have a _huge_ problem on our hands if Spark turns into a T-Rex and someone sees her."

Brigid ignored this. "Here, I got something that should help…" She dumped…. A picture book into my lap, and went towards a TV in the corner. What in the world… After messing around a bit, the redhead had apparently put in a DVD. And not just any DVD. _Jurassic Park_. Well, I've never seen it, but I've heard a bit about it, and this is what I've concluded: Dinosaurs+ Park+ Fences Going Down+ Island+ People on the Island= … Excellent animatronics, screaming, and pure chaos. Sounds good to me!

Well, it turns out the movie was cool, and the picture book good for whacking stuff with, but not much else. I had seen a rather large error in the plan. "Uh, Brigid? Most of the dinos there are big. The house is small. And do we really want _any_ type, shape, or form of Velociraptor in the house?"

Looking thoughtful, Brigid looked at the movie. Then she put in… I don't believe it, another JP movie. This one… started on a beach, rather innocent. A girl found a lizard. The lizard stood on it's hind legs, chirped, and was quite obviously a dinosaur. I turned to Nudge, "They make them that small?"

She shrugged, looking at the screen, "I guess so…"

Later, we learned the name of the girl's 'friend'. A Procompsognathus, which we shortened to compy, was apparently perfect for me experimenting with its shape. Small, easy to avoid if anything happens, still a dinosaur, and adorable to the extreme.

After the movie and epic car chase scene, I stood in the center of the now cleared room. Fang, having reappeared at the start of the movie, stayed near Max, and the flock, Brigid, Dr. Martinez, and Ella fanned out to the sides.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the adorable green and brown striped compy. It was about one foot tall, had a long, narrow neck… And I felt the glow of shape-shifting…

I began to shrink. Not daring to do anything more than breathe, I waited 'til my transformation was over. Several people gasped, and I opened my eyes again. Everyone was so big!

Wordlessly, Brigid pulled a mirror out from her purse, and I looked into it. Staring straight at me, green with brown stripes, blue-eyed and lizard-like, was a compy.

What do you know, dinosaurs might have been birds after all!

* * *

_**So, this chapter was bit of a filler, and Brigid (sorry) was a bit OOC, but I think that that aspect of Spark's power needed some explanation.**_

_**So anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and please review! **_


	13. Chapter 13

Huh. What do you know? I'm not as paranoid as the rest of the Flock! –le gasp-

Ahem. I discovered this when we got on the plane this afternoon. Or was it yesterday afternoon? I dunno which, cause it's around midnight now. Maybe earlier, maybe later, and I don't feel like checking a clock.

Anyway, not long after we took off, the Flock, especially Max, started to get edgy. I think the rest of my group are claustrophobic… Then again, I'm hydrophobic, which I learned meant fear of water. At least if the water goes to above my knees.

Geez, I'm getting off topic. I think they were going to snap with tension, and we weren't even halfway to Africa.

Dr. Martinez then brought out the big gun; chocolate. That… semi-calmed everyone down, oddly enough, because isn't chocolate supposed to make you hyper?

So now, Max put me on watch, I guess so I could warn everyone if the plane went down in a huge flaming ball of metal… and then she fell asleep.

Unfortunately for me, I am a) a night owl and part cat, so I stay up late. And get hyperest late at night and b) I had chocolate. That should be enough explanation.

So I, hyper cat-girl, was supposed to be quiet while I was wide awake, on a plane, without anything to do cause my fellow 'friends' (little traitors; leave me alone when I want them awake so I can laugh at their spazzness…) to wake up, therefore causing me to get yelled at by Max, and which will most likely end up…. Not well. Heck, even one of the pilots is asleep!

So now I'm doodling out of sheer boredom. I found a sketchbook in Ella's bag. And a pencil…. It is mine now. The book was blank, anyway. And the pencil was a REAL pencil, with a good eraser and everything.

I'm going off-topic again…

And talking to myself.

That's not a good sign.

At that moment, the pilot or co-pilot (I don't know which one) came over a little speaker and said, "We will be hitting some turbulence soon; I advise you to buckle up."

The responses to this news; Iggy snored. Max simply shifted a bit in her sleep. Dr. Martinez said in her dreams, "No, Jeb, those are _our_ potatoes… get away from our food…"

….Okay then… Moving on…

And then we hit the turbulence. Lovely.

I bounced up and down in my seat, trying to keep my pencil from marking my drawing and ruining it. I had not buckled my seatbelt, so I was currently being thrown around like I was in a dryer.

If the pilot/co-pilot's announcement hadn't woken up anyone, this did. Max woke up immediately and apparently thought someone was attacking her, so she threw her arms out in hopes to catch them by surprise. She hit Fang, who was sleeping by her.

The poor boy didn't get out of the way fast enough. That's going to leave a mark.

Gazzy's eyes flew open as the plane dipped slightly, making him bounce in his seat. He nearly landed on top of Nudge. His blood-sister hung onto her seat for dear life. Iggy, meanwhile, snored, but it broke off as the plane bounced again.

I was busy clinging to my own seat, in a similar fashion to Angel. One big difference between us was that while Angel used her fingers, I used claws to hang onto the seat. It was similar to how a cat hangs onto a tree trunk.

The plane recoiled back up and down. The Flock, Ella, and Dr. Martinez were imitating Angel's cling to the seat. No one imitated me, seeing as I was so much better with my claws. **(Author's Commentary: Crim swoops down, saying, "Bad Spark! Stop being so egotistical!" Ahem.) **Then, as the planed dunked down again, my claws started to leave some marks on the seats of our lovely private jet plane.

"Spark!" Max yelled, somehow managing to speak while being thrashed, "Stop destroying the plane!"

"I can't help it!" I yowled back, as the plane began bouncing even more. A sound of ripping cloth came from my seat. I looked outside the window, and saw that, surprisingly, we were in the middle of a huge cloud. It was probably a storm.

The pilot stuck his head in our part of the plane and shouted, "Sorry! The wind drove us off course, and now we're in a thunderstorm! Hold on!"

Fang muttered, "Shouldn't he be driving the plane? Trying to get us out of this?"

I thought, 'Well. This is just dandy.'

Yes I used the word dandy. Deal with it.

And then, my brain finally realized what this meant for us: If the plane is caught in a thunderstorm, it could crash. If we crash, then a) what will Dr. Martinez, Ella, and the pilot/co-pilot do? and b) We were in the middle of a storm, and you're not supposed to fly in a thunderstorm, and c) if we landed…. We're probably in the middle of the ocean, though it's too dark to tell. Since we're not supposed to fly, and we should get on the ground… If we don't fly we land in the water. And swim.

One problem; I can't swim. My fear of water had forever prevented me from learning.

This was going to be… interesting, to say the least.

The plane went up and down, it dipped and dove. Then, it didn't dip up again. It just went down.

I'm not saying it went straight down like some aerial version of the _Titanic_. It instead went at an angle.

Oh, why did nature have to torture me with the fact that there was a huge expanse of water beneath me, which I was zooming towards?

WHY?!!? WHY!?!?!

Ahem.

The plane went past the cloud, faster and faster. I heard the pilot panicking from the control compartment up ahead.

Then, we landed. Somewhat.

We were on land! Precious land! Not water! The pilot was braking (is that possible on a plane?) and the rest of us were bonking our heads on the roof of the plane.

It skidded forwards, eventually slowing to a halt.

When it did, all the passengers were thrown forwards, making us land on top of each other, and pressed up against the walls.

I detangled myself from the dog pile, and looked out the window. I could see, just barely and by the starlight, see a plain stretching in front of me. My tail twitched in surprise and anticipation.

"Well," I said, "we're in Africa now!"

Max, who had gotten up, smacked me around my ears.


	14. Chapter 14

After my 'no duh' statement, I did a very sensible thing. I went to the door to open it.

Unfortunately, the door was banged up and stuck. Really stuck. So I did a… slightly stupid thing.

"Come on! Work with me here!" I yelled, then I kicked the door. _Oowwwwwwww…_

Max, who had come up behind me, rolled her eyes, pushed me out of the way, and tugged experimentally on the door. It did not budge. So Max asked the pilot for something.

"Hey," she called towards the front, "do you have a hatchet I can use? The door's kinda stuck."

A groan from the front let us know that the dude was alive. He poked his head around the door, and said, slightly groggily, "Maybe. It's on here in case of a fire."

Seriously?! They keep _hatchets_ on planes?! And they were letting _Max_ use it willingly?

….I don't think the plane was the same again after Max found her hatchet and hit, ahem, mauled, the door…

Gazzy and Nudge, who were standing by me, ducked as a piece of metal flew past. I was hiding behind a seat. It was the same seat that had been ripped to shreds. Iggy shouted at Max, "Take it easy! Some of us actually _like_ keep metal out of our skulls!"

The brownish haired girl then finished wreaking destruction on the plane door. It was apparently very thick, tough metal, 'cause I don't think it would have stood for as long as it did against a determined Max.

I let the flock clamber out of the plane first, seeing as they were wound tighter than a spring. Again, claustrophobia. Thank the heavens I don't have it. I climbed after them. Ella and Dr. Martinez, followed by the pilot and co-pilot, came after me.

Max took charge. I let her. I'm not really an Alpha person, more so of a Beta more than anything else. The leader says what needs to be done, the deputy actually makes sure it does get done. The leader gets blamed for bad actions, the deputy is ignored. A much better life, I would say.

"Okay," she started, her Beta, I mean Fang, by her side, "First off, where are we?"

"I think we're close to the coast of Mauritania," said the pilot. I still didn't know what his name was. Oh well.

"We're supposed to have landed in Mali…" his partner in flight trailed off.

Max nodded, and Fang asked, "Do we have any communication?"

The co-pilot shook his head. "No, the radio got taken out in the… landing." Well, that's the nice way to put it…

Ella had whipped out a cell phone and was holding it very high. "No cell service, either."

"Then we're walking." Max's statement brought many a complaint to the group.

"Why can't we fly?" whined Nudge.

"We'd leave these four to the wildlife," Max replied, waving a hand towards the four pure humans.

"And we don't know the terrain. We don't know how far help is, and how fast we could get there. It'll be best to stick together." Wow, Fang is turning into a talkaholic.

Iggy turned to me, or at least in my direction, and he apparently had an idea. "Hey, Spark, since we're walking, could you find a couple of zebras to ride?"

I threw him a wasted but nonetheless satisfying glare. "The are a number of things wrong with that, Iggy," I started.

Gazzy whispered to Angel, "Here comes a really long monologue."

"First off, what wild animal would let you ride it? I mean, horses are one thing, but they're used to them, and trust humans. Second, I don't see any zebras around here, do you?"

"I'm blind. I can't see anything."

"No duh. Anyway, I don't see any footprints, hair, or poo to suggest that zebras have been here. And thirdly, zebras don't live here! They lived in the savannah! We. Are. In. A. Flipping. _Desert,_" I finished, panting slightly.

Angel piped up, "What about camels?"

Oh. OH. Whoops. Iggy "looked" in my direction and raised an eyebrow questioningly. I said threateningly, "No comment."

Now, Nudge turned to me and attacked before Max or Fang could say anything. "Ooh, a camel? I've never ridden one before!"

"None of us have," Max muttered with gritted teeth.

"Uh, this has been very entertaining," interrupted the pilot, "But I see some camels over there."

WHAT!?!?! Oh. He was right! Apparently, camels are everywhere in Mauri-whatsit.

"How do you plan to get them over here? And willing to let us ride them?" Oh, the co-pilot would be in for a big surprise…

Gazzy shoved me in the direction of the camels. "Oh, Spark here's a kind of animal whisperer." The rest of the flock smothered giggles as I glared at him.

All of the people there settled down a bit, while standing, to watch me attempt to camel tame. I took this as a hint to go, and I squared my shoulders and took off.

Walking, not flying. Remember, we are trying to not scare the camels.

As I approached, one looked up at me curiously. I started the conversation by saying the first word that comes to mind when greeting someone; "Hi…"

All of the camels stared back. One (it's always one) recovered first, and replied, "Hello… What do you want, human?"

Someone's no nonsense…. "Well, me and my friends crashed from the sky. Unfortunately, the thing we use to get up in the sky… died… so we can't get to where we need to go."

This was good, the camels looked convinced…

"So… since you are the royalty of the desert, perfectly suited to this as we are not, could you help us get out of here?" The camels looked slightly pleased by now. Flattery will get you anywhere. By a quick head count, there were about nine or ten camels in the herd,

"You want to ride us? You think we are that dumb?" said one male furiously.

"Hush, Abeeku, we haven't heard all of what she is offering us," scolded an older female. She swiveled her head to look me in the eye. "You will give us something in return if we let you ride us, correct?"

I gulped slightly, my tail twitching nervously. "Yes. Will food and water suffice?"

The female, who was obviously the leader of the group, stared at me for a bit, then nodded. "Yes. For all of us. We will accept our payment when we reach our destination."

Abeeku still looked uneasy. "Is that it?"

I piped up, "My group can provide protection during the journey, guranteed!"

The female nodded approvingly. "Good. Tell your group that we accept. By the way, I'm called Murua. You?"

"Spark, Lady Murua."

She dipped her head, and I jogged back to the flock and humans.

"Well?" asked Iggy.

"We can ride on them, but they need payment in return."

"What kind of payment?" the pilot asked curiously.

I took a deep breath, and rattled off the terms. "We have to protect them on the way out of the desert, and once out we give them food and water for them all. Then, I believe they wish to stay free."

Dr. Martinez then said, "So, let's go," and we walked over to the camels to begin the trek across the desert.

* * *

**And that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed that chapter! Please review, and tell me what you thought of it!**


	15. Chapter 15

Deserrt? Check. No food or water? Check. Plane crash that stranded us here? Check again. Everyone riding camels except for me? Wow, this sounds kinda cliché…

Why was I the only person to not get a camel? Well, since I had promised the camels protection, I got the short end of the straw.

_Angel stood counting the camels. Then she turned to Max, "We'll be a couple short, Max, if everyone gets their own camel."_

"_Huh," Max replied, "I guess we could always put you and Nudge on one, and let Spark keep up her promise."_

_Wait a second… "So we'll let Spark be something big with teeth, and we don't have to do butt-kicking cause she'll be doing it for us if the butt-kicking is needed?" Angel asked innocently._

"_That might be the plan."_

_The flock turned to me with expectant expressions on their face. Oh great._

Aaaaaaaand that's the story about why I'm not riding a camel. I busy providing the protection against baddies. When I had transformed, the camels and pilot had freaked out, but the flock and Dr. Martinez managed to calm them down.

Now, I was tired and hungry. The shape I had assumed was big and an excellent predator. I bet Max would let me catch a rabbit for myself. That would help.

You all are probably wondering, "What could Spark possibly be?" Well, I'm big. I have a giant toeclaw. What am I? If you guessed Velociraptor, you're wrong.

You see, real Velociraptors are three feet tall. Not exactly the definition of intimidating. The ones in _Jurassic Park_ are actually Deinonycus, the six or five foot tall otherwise carbon copies of Velociraptor.

But no, I happened to be _even bigger_ than that. I had to be Utah's thief. I had to be Utahraptor. Lovely. Either way, I stuck out like a sore thumb. They just had to make me transform into a big dinosaur… A lion would've done just as well…

But Utahraptor wasn't a carbon copy! Hip hip hooray for originality! It was dark green, with stripes of black. However, I had a large spray of feather on my head that were dark orange and brown, in addition to the feathers on my wings. Those feathers happened to be dark orange and brown too, though with a few black ones in the mix.

Anyway, exactly how big was I? The toeclaw was _fifteen_ inches long. Fifteen inches of pure ripping power. I dunno about you, but that's impressive.

I was almost ten feet tall, and almost twenty-two feet long. Yet, despite my size, I felt light and swift, and still deadly and beautiful… Like a sword! Or a dragon!

Now I can see why the flock wanted me as a defender. I could be big, ferocious, and awesome, while they simply had to watch. Bah!

Ahem. My giant toeclaws weren't the only weapons. I had clawed forelimbs that were nubbish like a T-Rex's (Seriously! The arms are pitiful!), and a set of jaws full of sharp, serrated teeth that pointed backwards, and were obviously meant to rip rather than bite.

But enough on me. The entire group was riding on camels. Murua was Angel and Nudge's steed, and Max on Abeeku. I figured that their stubborn personalities fit together well.

Although when I put them together I forgot they couldn't talk to each other like I can…

Whoops.

Ahem. Either way, I spotted something that looked like it could be food up ahead. I looked up, interested, and saw that it was a snake. I hate eating snakes, they were too dry and scaly, but I decided to go after it anyway.

I turned to Max and asked, "I'm hungry. Can I go catch some food?"

She stared at me momentarily, which was understandable because you would not expect a dinosaur to talk, even if she was expecting it, then replied, "Be quick."

I nodded, sighted my prey, and took off. Boy, raptors were _fast_. I flashed across the desert like lightning, amazed at the speed that I was producing on the ground. I estimate that I was going maybe cheetah speed.

Either way, I arrived at my food quickly. A speedy glance before striking let me know that this species wasn't poisonous. I dipped my head down and caught it in my jaws. I snapped its spine, killing the creature, and trotted back to my group with my prize.

Max eyed the snake warily. Okay, so now she had claustrophobia and- snakophobia?

I dunno. Either way, I ignored the slightly curious and disgusted gazes and gulped the snake down. Nudge blinked once at how fast the snake went down before bursting out, "You have warp drive on the ground! It's so cool, you went so fast! Can I ride you?"

"Didn't Total say that Max had warp drive once?" asked Angel.

"Yeah, I think so, but it was in the air." We had left Total and Aikla in Florida, to all you who are wondering about where the Toto-from-Wizard-of-Oz-carbon-copy went to.

But I so smartly replied, "Max has warp drive?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Max was trying very hard not to look too proud of it. I knew otherwise.

Nudge said again, "But I want to ride you! Please? Can I?"

I sighed, and chuckled, but said, "Sure."

Her face lit up and she slid off Murua smoothly. I stopped my progress to wait for her to get to me, then I bent down so she could mount.

When Nudge was securely on, I braced myself, and took off again. Once again, I marveled at my speed. The girl on my back whooped and cheered. "This feel like flying?" I asked over the wind.

"Almost as good as it!" she shouted back, grinning. I felt myself smiling a bit too, and pushed myself faster. Then, I decided to test another ability of a raptor; Jumping.

After a few more fast-paced steps, I kicked off the ground very hard, launching myself into the air.

Great stars above. I went like… thirty feet… **(AN: I'm guesstimatining from the raptors in Jurassic Park who were only six feet tall. They jump twelve or twenty feet, I can't remember…)**

"HOLY CRAP!" Nudge yelled. I unfurled my wings then, and we were flying.

"You didn't tell me you were a kangaroo too!" she told me.

"I didn't know I could even go that high!"

"Me neither!"

Flying as raptor was amazing. Hard work, to say the least, because my wingspan was around thirty feet, maybe thirty-five.

I felt like a dragon. If only I could breathe fire… No, wait that's a bad idea. If I sneezed…

I didn't finish the thought. Nudge had asked, "Should we be getting back?"

"Yeah…" Sadly, we had to turn back. We had only been gone for about ten minutes, but we had gone very far. I swooped back to the rest of the group.

Max raised an eyebrow at me when I had landed. "What was that about trying to not draw attention to the dinosaur again?"

I stuck my tongue out at her.

Nudge, however, had noticed something on the flight I hadn't. She also had decided to keep it in until we had gotten back.

She burst out loudly, "I saw land!"

What?

"Nudge, we're not on a ship," Iggy said sarcastically.

"…Oops. I meant to say, I saw a city!"

Well, that made more sense. Seeing land in the middle of a desert… I shook my head, exasperated.

**AN: And that's Chapter Fifteen! Now if you would be so kind as to press the green button there, I would be very grateful…**


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: I checked back in JP (not James Patterson. Jurassic Park.) and the raptors jumped from the ground to a balcony on a second story building fairly easily and quietly. Without seriously injuring themselves, climbing, etc.**

* * *

Tonight, we sat around the fire. The camels dozed a little way away as they did not trust us enough to stay closer.

I didn't mind though. Heat from the day rose off of the sand and warmed us, although it wouldn't last. Soon, it would get cold, and the fire would be our only source of warmth.

For me, however, the best part was the sky. Since I'd joined the flock, we had stayed close to cities and towns. I had forgotten how many stars could be in the night sky. It was dazzling. It reminded me of life in the forests and mountains with Nuri and Nova.

The entire group was sitting around the fire we had made from bits of dried wood and camel dung. It may have been smelly, but it burned strong and hot. We roasted whatever we could find on sticks that we had picked up. I have no idea what they were doing in the middle of the desert…

Anyway, I had provided most of the food. Meatwise, at least. Fang had sent me off to go hunting as a Utahraptor earlier, but I was in human shape now. Gazzy had ridden me this time, and he had been helpful.

He had spotted a couple of snakes for me. I had brought them back to the camp, and Max was still afraid of snakes. Really, Max?

And now we were roasting them over the fire. It was going to take a while, 'cause Gazzy and I had found some very big snakes. And a lot of them, too.

I was not that surprised when Nudge said, "Hey, since we're pretty much camping, does anyone have any stories to tell?"

Silence. I raised my hand slightly timidly. "I have one…"

Angel looked at me, curious. "What's it about?"

I sat back, unsure about what to say. I was going to do a legend from the mountain lions that I had learned, but I wasn't sure which one.

Gazzy leaned forward, saying, "Is it from the animals?"

"Yes."

"What's it about?" Iggy repeated Angel's question.

I sighed, knowing my decision. The story would be long, but at least the snake will have finished cooking by the time I'm done.

"It's the first legend that a baby animal of North America learns," I said, knowing I would sound mysterious and interesting, "It's the legend that is passed down from generation to generation, no matter what. It is tradition, and even those animals born and raised in zoos that have never felt the wind of the wild know it." I paused and looked at one of the countless stars overhead. I had everyone's attention. "It's the story about how the Free People, which we call animals, were made."

_Many season-cycles ago, countless season-cycles ago, it was dark. The only thing that existed was the night sky, and that was dark and un-pierced by the light of stars. One thing existed, and that was a spirit. The spirit's name was Freespirit._

_He was alone in the world, though, so he decided to make companions for himself. He knew that they could not float throughout the sky like he could, so he made an surface on which they could live. The surface would bind them to it so they could not float away and die._

_This became known as Gaia. However, Freespirit was not sure that his companions would like it alone on Gaia. So he took a piece of his own spirit, and formed it into the sun. It gave warmth and light to Gaia, and it was nice. However, it seemed that forever warm and gold would be bland and monotonous, just as it would be if it was all dark._

_So Freespirit took a piece of the sun, and put a piece of the dark into it. This became the moon, and it gives silver light to Gaia half the time. It appears with the stars to help it give light, as it was not as bright as the sun._

_Yet still Freespirit was not pleased with the place he had created. Therefore, he made water and wind to satisfy himself, and later his companions. He made plants which gave food and shelter. And finally he deemed the place he had created good enough for his companions._

_Freespirit made each of his companions unique. He made the wolf swift and loyal. He made the deer cautious and gently. He made the squirrel quick and energetic. The smart and strong mountain lion was made. The bear was to be strong and gentle. The birds were to be free and cheerful. The wolverine was fierce and brave._

_Pleased with the friend he had made, he placed them on Gaia with a mate. It would be cruel to leave them alone. Now they flourish all over his land. When they please him, he grants them gentle rain and warm sunshine. When they don't, he throws violent storms and droughts down._

_Now, sometime later, Freespirit felt the creative urge to create another creature. This one, though, was different._

_When he had finished making the creature, he set it on Gaia. All of his first friend as well as the new creature were confused as to what each other were. This new creature had no fur except for some on the top of its head. It walked on its hind legs and had pink skin._

_And yet it was smart and cunning. Because it was new to the world, the animals took it upon themselves to teach this new creature the ways of wind, water, and the wild._

_The wolf taught the creature how to be loyal to one another and love family. The squirrel taught them communication and determination. The mountain loyal showed them how to hunt. The bear showed them how to protect the ones you love. The wolverine showed the creatures how to survive in the wild. The birds taught how to be free. But it was gentle deer who sacrificed themselves, saying that the creatures could eat them if they were caught in a fair hunt, and they did not take too many. But along with this opportunity, they showed the creatures how to love the world around them._

_But the new creatures, dubbed Pinkskins, grew greedy. War broke out. Freespirit couldn't bear to see his friends fighting this new creature he had unleashed, yet he didn't want to destroy it. So finally, one day, he made a decision._

_He made the Pinkskins speak a different tongue than his original companions. Unfortunately, this made all the animal types speak in different tongues from one another. Peace was reached, but not without a price, and we still pay for the greed of the Pinkskins to this day._

I finished the tale with a deep breath. I was thirsty. I made do with eating some of the snake meat that had finished cooking halfway through the story.

Fang decided to break the tense silence that had followed my story. "Well, I've never heard that before."

Dr. Martinez looked confused. "That was… interesting…"

Ella cocked her head to the side. "None of us have heard legends or anything like that from an animal's perspective."

"We're animals, you know…" I commented dryly.

"Oh yeah…."

More silence followed before Nudge announced that she was going to sleep. Pretty much everyone else followed suit, and was left on watch again.

I stared into the flames, trying to collect my thoughts. I had hoped we were staying in Africa, but I think we would be going home soon. I had really wanted to see a lion, too…

Oh well. What was more unsettling was the look everyone had given me. I mean, it was weird hearing a legend from a different culture, right? But I think what freaked them all out was the ending… Our greed was tearing up the Earth…

But why did they not like that so much? We aren't really tearing it up. If we were gone tomorrow the Earth would not miss us. A hundred years to the Earth is nothing. A million years is nothing.

I had heard that the CSM was working to stop and save the Earth, which I supposed hit home.

But the thing is, the Earth doesn't need saving, right? It can take care of itself.

It's really us that needs saving. I realized this just after I was relieved from my watch and before I fell asleep. Tomorrow would be more normal.

Tomorrow we would make it to the town, and I could fulfill my promise to the camels.

Tomorrow, I wouldn't be stared at as much for seeming so different.

There's always tomorrow to look forward to.

* * *

**And that's chapter sixteen! I hope you enjoyed it!**

**I really wanted to get a legend from the animals written. It was fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed it.**

**Oh, yes, and humans are called Pinkskins, even though the animals would've seen Native Americans because the first ones they saw were pinkish, and the Native Americans were simply Pinkskins with a different pelt color.**


	17. Chapter 17

The next day, we headed out. We rode the camels, though Angel rode me now (once again, I had been a Utahraptor for transportation), and saw the sunrise.

Believe me, the desert sunrise is amazing. It's dark and filled with stars at first, then the horizon we were heading into (we're walking east) turned to dark blue, and stars faded from it. Then the blue spread, up and around the sky, and a few colors would dab the horizon. Then the sun itself would poke up, and shoot its first rays across the sand.

Stars were still visible on the opposite horizon, with the dark blue sky surrounding them. Paler, softer, cooler blue separated the stars from the sun. The sense of freedom was astounding.

It was beautiful, to say the least.

Angel and I had reached an agreement, meanwhile. I wouldn't annoy her and act…. Um, attitudeish? Whatever, to her, and she wouldn't read my mind.

This allowed her to not be annoyed when I talk to an animal, I got privacy, and we all were happy. I still put up a mental shield just in case.

Either way, Angel was stroking my spray of head-feathers gently. It was different from Ella petting my ears. Don't ask why it was different, I dunno either, but it just was a different case than if my ears were pet.

Aaaaaanyway, the town was getting closer. I had run off to check a little while ago. By now, after we went over a small sand hill, we'd be able to see it. From there, it's about two, three hours ride.

Thank goodness. I wasn't losing much water due to my scaly skin, but the others… Well, they were dehydrated.

We had been on the move for… I counted up the days in my head. Yesterday, half of the day before… So this would be two days at least without water. Human can't go for that long without it. I think three days is the max.

I dunno about bird kids. I think maybe a little longer, but that's a guess.

* * *

I climbed over the hill in front of the town. Thank Freespirit, we were here!

I turned to the camels, where Max and the others were dismounting. Angel had already gotten off of me, and I had shifted back to normal form. I don't think the townspeople would be thrilled to have a giant Utahraptor running pell-mell through the town…

I trotted over to the camels. "Hey," I started telling Murua, "You're going to have to follow us in, okay? Act tame…"

She looked at me funny. "We are not tame animals meant to follow you."

"It's pretend. Just act tamish."

"Tamish?"

"Yes, tamish."

The camel looked at me strangely again. "Okay, then…"

I walked over to Max. "The camels are going to act tamish." It's pronounced TAY-mish, by the way, not tam-ish.

"Tamish?"

"Yes, tamish."

I'm having an odd sense of déjà vu….

And we were off. In a foreign land. With no money, or the ability to speak the language of here.

Let the mime-fest begin…

Wait- if we did something vulgar or extremely rude on accident, thing could turn deadlier than Max with her hatchet. Which she STILL held by her side even now. I think it's love.

Ahem. Wait a second!

"Angel?" I asked innocently.

"Yes, Spark?"

"Can you read their minds?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand them?"

"Not at all."

Well, great. Even our mind reader/ controller is out of use.

Then the pilot walked over to a random civilian and started talking to them. The person responded back.

WHAT THE HECK!?!

"You can speak their language?" asked Gazzy.

The pilot nodded. His co-pilot shook his head. "I do, but Bobby here can't. I had to, because I come to this area often with supplies."

Well, I didn't understand a single word of what the pilot was saying to the villager. It sounded like, "Yoiuwhk? Grjklgfjk tekdfjk fkdjguoieooewkjmv kklfgn wdkelketjrtggmfd gjkgjgmgf g kfjdm rgdkljpoowweowldlmlgm fcnfsllkf ytit. Jfgjjk?" to me. I don't know what it was exactly, but…

The villager didn't get mad at him. Nor did he turn into a ninja and come after us with a sign saying "Delicious" and a machete. So I assume that, "Yoiuwhk? Grjklgfjk tekdfjk fkdjguoieooewkjmv kklfgn wdkelketjrtggmfd gjkgjgmgf g kfjdm rgdkljpoowweowldlmlgm fcnfsllkf ytit. Jfgjjk?" was not an insult.

The pilot came back from his odd language exchange and said, "There's a phone over there. Anyone got any spare change?"

Well, Ella had the most. An entire quarter!

We managed to scrap together the required dollar for the pay phone and then… half of us crowded in the pay phone. Me, Nudge, Ella, and Gazzy went to give the camels their reward. We actually got it for free. How, you ask? Well, it's apparently tradition to feed an water guests, and their camels. We gave our food to the camels.

Then we thanked the villagers and left. And we never saw the camels again.

EVER! Ever! Ever. –echos into distance-

Uh… yeah. But, oddly enough, halfway to the telephone booth that was hosting half the group, Angel, who was walking beside me, suddenly stiffened. I glanced at her, surprised, and saw something odd in her eyes. They were still blue as always, but…. They had shock, fear, and sadness in them.

I was wondering what in the name of all that is holy was going on with her, but before I could ask, we were at the phone booth again.

Dr. Martinez, followed by the pilot, co-pilot, and everyone else, came out of the booth cheerfully, albeit a bit ruffled and slightly squished-looking.

"We'll have a helicopter pick us up in a few hours!" she announced.

"That's good," I said back.

"Obviously."

"Yes, I know Ella."

"You know me? When have we met?"

"Okay, guys," Max said, pushing in between us, "break it up. Ella, stop intentionally acting like Cleverbot."

"But it's fun!"

"I know it is, El. But you aren't him."

"What makes you so sure it's a him?" asked Iggy.

Fang replied, "No one knows."

After Fang, had spoken, Angel had flashed her eyes up again before looking sad.

"What is it, Angel?" asked Max worriedly.

The littlest blond-haired girl looked down, before announcing completely spontaneously, "Fang is going to die soon."

Well. Hole. E. Crap.

* * *

**Well, that was Chapter Seventeen! I have been having an interesting relationship with Cleverbot lately. My friend is now apparently married to it and has two children, and it asked me out.**

**So.... I hope you enjoyed it!**


	18. Chapter 18

Everyone froze. Then a heck of a lot of things happened at once.

Nudge tried not to scream. Fangs eyes flashed. (kinda cool, actually…) I saw fear and shock in Max's eyes. Wait- was she and Fang together? I dunno, I'm horrible at picking up that kind of stuff.

I personally was trying to freak out, as was the rest of the flock.

Then Max flashed, or ran, but it was too hard to tell which, over to Angel. She picked the little blond girl up by her scru- shirt front, not scruff, and slammed her against the nearest building wall.

"How do you know this?!" she snarled, quite scarily, "Tell me! Tell me!"

"Max…" Fang warned, moving forward to put a hand on her shoulder. Max ignored it and continued yelling at Angel.

"Max…" Fang said again, more firmly this time. He tried to pull her away from Angel. She didn't budge.

"Come on Max… Stop strangling Angel…" I tried now. Fang glared at me.

"This isn't the time to be funny."

"I know. I wasn't trying to."

Now Iggy and Nudge were gently tugging on Max. She still ignored them. Gazzy and me started grabbing her and pulling, and Max didn't move.

There wasn't any room for Fang to join. I tugged harder, and actually moved Max from Angel. She dropped Angel, who was white-faced and ruffled.

Gazzy zipped to the side to help Angel. Before Max could turn on me, Fang grabbed her, rather roughly, and turned her to face him. "Max," he started, "Stop freaking out. It'll be okay, all right?"

She nodded.

Well. That was interesting. We still had a few hours left before the helicopter came and got us and brought us back to the good 'ol USA. How much more excitement could we cram into our visit to Africa?

I didn't want to transform or show my ears and tail (they were hidden at the moment). I don't think it would be a good idea to go on a hunt for lions. We were too far to go to Isla Nublar…

Now what?

Before my question-that-would-inevitably-go-haywire could be answered, Max turned to Angel and said, "I'm sorry." It was a bit gruff, but okay, good effort Max!

The little one simply glared at her, then turned to Gazzy, who was faithfully standing by her. "I'm alright," she said primly.

I rolled my eyes. Weirdo.

The next few hours were rather boring. I dozed. I chased after a mouse that was sniffing around us. I talked with Iggy and Nudge. And was bored.

BORED I TELL YOU! BORED!!!!

Ahem. The rest of the group was rather unbusy too. Fang and Max held hands (dawww) and talked to Ella and Dr. Martinez. The pilot and co-pilot had fallen asleep. Angel was doodling in the dirt next to Gazzy, who was being protective of her.

Like I said earlier, I was chatting with Iggy and Nudge. Nudge had become really desperate for entertainment. She had started copying _everything_ we said.

Well, if she wanted entertainment, she got it. Iggy and I were very irritated by it. I'll bet our reactions were funny.

Either way, it was very annoying. I was desperate for her to stop. So was Iggy. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Heh heh… I think it's time to test out _REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY_!!! Ahem.

"Nudge… please…" pleaded Iggy.

"Nudge… please…" she shot back.

"Stop copying us!" I yowled angrily.

"Stop copying us!" she yelled back. Wait… us? Was Nudge sharing her body with some other soul?

"Please Nudge! Stop it!" Iggy shouted.

"Please Nudge! Stop it!" Nudge yelled back.

"You're such a jerk for doing this!" I hissed.

"You're such a jerk for doing this!"

"Stop it!" Iggy said now.

"Stop it!"

I took matters into my own hands.

"You're a jerk!" I said.

"You're a jerk!"

"You're an idiot!"

"You're an idiot!"

"You're a bitch!"

"You're a bitch!"

"Hah! I can't believe you just said that!"

"Hah! I can't believe you just- OH MY GOSH!" Nudge spazzed and smacked her hands over her mouth in horror. "Max will kill me for saying that!" she added.

"I'm going to kill you for saying what?" asked Max, confused.

Nudge didn't reply. So Iggy and I said it for her, simultaneously. "Bitch."

"I am not!" Max shot back.

"Not you," Iggy tried to calm her down, "Nudge said it."

"Nudge! Language!" said Max sternly.

I snickered as Nudge glared at the pair of us and turned to talk to Angel and Gazzy. "How did you do that?" asked Iggy slightly admiringly.

"Reverse psychology."

"Ah."

Well, after the reverse psychology break, the helicopter came. Yippee! Finally!

It landed and nearly blinded us with sand. I coughed. It took five minutes after that for the cloud to clear and everyone to stop coughing. Why exactly did they send a helicopter after us if they were going to choke us to death with dust?

Anyway, after the dust had cleared, we walked to the plane. Max was in the lead because Max is always in the lead.

She threw open the door, and we saw two people. Both were of the male species, though one was much older than the other.

The older one had glasses and a mustache. "Who's that?" I asked Angel.

"Jeb. He's Max's dad," she replied.

Well he did look a bit like Max.

The other dude was tall and skinny, like a pure bird-kid. He had light brown hair, dark brown eyes, and fair skin.

"Who's that?"

"No idea."

Max looked rather confused too. "Who's that?" she asked sharply.

"I'm Dylan," the dude spoke.

"Okay. Now will you kindly tell us what you're doing here?" Max said with forced graciousness.

"I'm here because I was created for you, Max." Uh…. No comment… "I'm meant to be your other half."

If I called Angel weird before, well, this dude made here look really normal. Max didn't seem at all interested. "Ya huh," she shot back, "and I'm the tooth fairy. Besides, beetle-brain, it won't even possibly work out if you don't have wings."

Dylan proceeded to open up a pair of wings, fifteen feet wide, that were about the color of a barn owl's.

Max still glared at him. "Yes you have wings. But I have Fang, and I'm not dumping him for you!" She then proceeded to take Fang's arm and hold it tightly.

Fang smiled slightly at that. He apparently didn't like Dylan, from what I see.

Neither did I. Max's hand slightly around the hatchet that she was still carrying. I didn't have to be Angel to know that she was considering throwing it at the weirdo in front of us.

"Max, put down the hatchet and nobody gets hurt," warned Jeb.

She huffed but dropped it.

Jeb, impervious to her glares and odd looks that she and the rest of the flock were shooting at Dylan, stepped aside to let us in. "So," he began, "Shall we go home?"

We all nodded and padded inside. It was small and comfortable. Unfortunately, that's what the plane was like too. That's right, the helicopter inside looked a lot like the crashed plane's interior.

If this ride was going to be anything like the last flight in a machine. And, judging by the looks we were giving strange dude, this was.

Oh, the joys of small, compacted aircraft!

* * *

**And that's a wrap! I actually had the inspiration to do this in one night! It normally takes me a couple days because halfway through writing the chapter, I get bored and go elsewhere.**

**Yes, I know most of us don't like Dylan. So I made him a weirdo, though apparently that's what he is.**

**The conversation of reverse psychology actually happened between a couple of friends at lunch. It was an amusing lunch.**


	19. Chapter 19

Well. This ride home was… a bit awkward. Max and Fang sat on one side of the cabin, Dylan, Jeb, Dr. Martinez, and Ella on the other. The pilots? Up front.

The rest of us were on Max's side of the cabin. I was dozing, as nothing interesting was happening. Max and the rest were talking in low voices.

Darn, these people were uninteresting. Angel, who was sitting beside me, whispered, "I agree."

I shot her a half-hearted glare. "I thought I told you not to read my mind."

She shrugged. "I was bored. And you weren't guarding your mind."

I sighed in response to this. There was nothing to do! I lashed my tail in frustration.

Angel tugged my arm slightly. "You could tell another story."

Glancing at her, I shrugged. "You actually liked the last one?"

"Everyone did. It was just a lot to take it," she replied, blue eyes wide.

I sighed again. I turned my attention towards the talking people. Max was saying, "What will we do when we return?"

"The CSM has given you a house in Colorado. You can live there," Jeb replied.

This caught everyone's attention. "A house?" asked Nudge, disbelieving what she was hearing. "An entire house? For us?"

"No, Nudge, just half a house," Iggy responded sarcastically.

"It's an entire house for you." Dr. Martinez joined the conversation.

We were all thunderstruck. Dylan the lovesick idiot then piped up, "But I can't join you."

"What a shame…" Max muttered.

Gazzy asked, "How old are you anyway, Dylan?"

"Eight months old."

"WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT?!?!?!!!" we all exclaimed simultaneously.

How the-?! What the-!? He looked _fifteen_. Not 8 months.

"His growth was sped up," Jed explained.

"No duh."

We were all silent for a moment, then Angel tugged my arm again. "You said you would tell me a story," she insisted. I had forgotten about that.

"Oh yeah, that." Nudge and Gazzy looked up at me, interested.

"You're going to tell another story?"

"What's it going to be about?"

Now _everyone_ was listening. Ella asked me to not do another creation story like the one I did last time. I assured her I wouldn't.

"Okay," I started, taking a deep breath, "Any suggestions for what the story will be?"

"We don't know your legends," Fang pointed out dryly. I ignored that.

"Do you have one about baby animals?" asked Nudge.

I thought for a moment, then smiled. I had the perfect one. "How about how the baby deer got its spots?"

Well, Nudge and Angel squealed yes. I turned, took a drink of water from the glass of it they had provided, and faced my expectant audience.

"How about I shape-shift for this?" I asked first.

Angel stared at me. "Won't you get tired?"

I shrugged. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. "Yeah, but it'll be interesting. Give me some jelly beans after I do."

We had gotten sports jelly beans as well as other food. The jelly beans were energy in bean form. I like 'em.

Nudge leaped towards them, nearing landing on Iggy in the process, and tore open a packet. Then stared at me with Bambi eyes, waiting for me to start.

I took another deep breath, got the glow, and transformed into a deer. I was quite lovely, with light reddish brown fur that was smooth and silky.

Then I began.

_In the time before the Pinkskins came, _(Dylan asked, "What's a Pinkskin?" Max answered him with, "Shut up, it's a human.")_ Anima, which are what animals were called before Pinkskins, flourished. Squirrels ruled the trees, wolves the hunt, and birds the sky._

_They all lived in harmony. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, and wolverines did eat the birds, squirrels, and deer, but they never took more than they needed. This allowed them to live in peace._

_However, baby deer were small and helpless. They still are now, but then they had no spots._

_Predators would always take what they could get, what was easiest to obtain. It was their way. Therefore, fawns, being small and helpless, served as easy meals._

_They tried to hide in the shade often, which worked sometimes, other times, sunlight would dapple them and expose them._

_Freespirit _(Dylan, idiot, asked, "Who's that? Max said, "Their god, basically, now shut up and listen!")_ didn't like this. However, he knew that he could change the way of the hunter, as they were doing all the could to survive themselves. So, he helped the deer._

_He started with a baby deer known as Taiko. He asked Taiko if he wished to be different, to be part of an experiment if you will. Taiko agreed._

_Freespirit then sent Taiko to a forest where sunlight dappled the floor. Sure enough, Taiko wasn't killed. Delighted, Freespirit called together all of the deer. He told them that their young would have spots from then on._

_So more deer survived, and all the animals enjoyed a happy life until the time of the Pinkskins._

I finished, transformed back, and downed the rest of my water. Then I proceeded to eat all of the jelly beans in the pack in one gulp. I nearly choked myself. Very smooth, Spark, very smooth.

While I was gagging, Max said, "Nice job. Just as good as last time."

I recovered and straightened up. Angel leaned over to me and hissed, "I told you they like it." I whacked her lightly.

Dylan asked, "She did a story before?" Well, now we know why he acts so dumb. You can accelerate the growth of the body, but there is absolutely nothing you can do to make the mind mature faster. The person just gets confused. Thank Freespirit I grew at a normal human rate.

Max growled, Iggy looked up and counted to ten, I simply did a facepalm.

We ignored him after that.

He complained for a while before shutting up. He learned! Good Dylan!

The helicopter flew throughout the night. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, it was still dark out. I thought I was the only one awake, though as I watched, Jeb stirred and awoke.

"What's the house in Colorado like?" I asked quietly.

He smiled at me. I had heard that he had acted as the flock's father before he disappeared a few years ago. Most of them apparently didn't trust him anymore. I think I could.

"It's big, big enough for all of you," he began, "It's near the mountains, and there's plenty of wildlife nearby. There's strong wind, and it's near a town. You'll love it there."

It did sound ideal. I had never lived in a house before. Dr. Martinez's was only for a bit, and I lived in a cage before that. The rest of the time, I was in the wild.

I grinned back at him. He then looked like he had just remembered something. After rummaging in the briefcase beside him, he came up with a book. "Brigid told me you could transform into dinosaurs," he said, holding the book out to me, "and I thought you might want to read this."

Well, dinosaurs were kinda cool, but they were no different than animals today.

But anyway, I now had my own book. It was _Jurassic Park_. Okay, so Brigid had told him about us watching it for me to transform. Now I needed to read the book, apparently. I didn't even know there was a book…

"Thanks," I murmured back to him. Jeb smiled at me. Why did he choose this? Because I could simply turn into extinct creatures. But at least I wouldn't be bored anymore. I peeked inside and saw that the font was small, and the book long. Yep, not for a while.

Oh well. This was one of the few times when I was given something of my own. The house, the book… I was grateful to the flock and all the good fortune they had brought me.

* * *

**Well, that's chapter nineteen! We're getting very close to chapter 20. Yay! And Spark has a book. She doesn't have many possessions, so that is very valuable.**

**The legends are becoming kinda regular… Anyone want them to continue during a lull in the plotline?**


	20. Chapter 20

Our little helicopter had enough fuel to just barely go over the Atlantic twice, without stops. That's a lot of fuel. Unfortunately, we had to land on a little island in Costa Rica, and it was foggy out (I had to try very hard not to laugh). After this pit stop, we went a short distance when compared to our previous journey; to Atlanta.

During our intermission, Jeb, Ella, and the lovesick idiot who calls himself Dylan left. I was sad about leaving Jeb and Ella, but I would've laughed manically if Dylan "accidentally" fell off a cliff.

Dr. Martinez was leading us home. So, we got on a plane this time, tried very hard not to think of the crash last time 'cause we'd curse it if we did. I don't want to crash in Africa again. I don't know how we'd do it, as we're in the middle of America, but we don't want déjà vu in any form.

And we were off! With entertainment and food and no Dylan. Yippee! We flew and flew some more. And some more. I got bored yet again and read some of _Jurassic Park_. There was lot of really boring legal stuff in the beginning, but it had a slightly sinister undertone…

Either way, I was well in the book when I got hungry. I ate something, talked to Angel and Iggy a bit, and back to my book. Thanks, Jeb. He reminded me of Nuri a bit.

Either way, I was finally done with the legal stuff when we started to tilt downwards slightly. I overreacted, thinking that the plane was going to crash. However, the pilot come on a second later telling us that we were going to land soon and that we needed to put on seatbelts.

Um… I got a lot of funny looks…

But we landed safely, without crashing nor Max having to find another hatchet. Thank Freespirit for that.

And then we learned we were apparently supposed to all cram into a car. The flock, me, Dr. Martinez, and the driver who was supposed to take us to the house.

Unsurprisingly, all of the flock refused.

"We're supposed to fit in… that?" Gazzy said disbelievingly. I didn't blame him.

"How about we just follow from the air?" Max suggested. Everyone agreed.

And we were off! We were actually fairly close to the airport where we had landed. Well, the city was. The airport was actually a little way away from the city of I-Don't-Know-or-Care-About-Its-Name. And our house was past that, closer to a small town named something or another. Yes, our house was really out of the way. I liked that.

Colorado was very pretty. We flew over huge fields, mountains that almost seemed to touch the sky… I loved it instantly. I could see a herd of deer in one part of it.

Gazzy flew near Iggy, guiding him with light taps of his wings. I almost forgot Iggy was blind. He seemed confused. I flew over to him.

"Smell the air?" I asked.

Iggy took a deep breath. "Yeah. Smells clean. There aren't many building around are there?"

"None, just deer, forests, and fields." Pure air smelled lovely. I don't think my comment was the wittiest, but it made him feel a bit better.

I loved it here. We were following the car along a long dirt road.

Soon, way too soon for us to explore more scenery, the car stopped. We all alighted down to see what had happened.

Dr. Martinez greeted us when we landed. "The house is right here," she said, "Around this cliff." There was a bend in the mountain that hid whatever was behind it. It looked cliff-like.

"Why did we stop here?" asked Fang.

"Dramatic effect."

Okay, then. Dr. Martinez then started to turn around the bend, beckoning for us to follow. Max exchanged a look with Fang and followed. Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel trotted behind them. I tapped Iggy's hand to show him that we were going. He followed me.

We turned the bend to find- Hole. E. Crap.

It was stunning. Absolutely stunning.

It was made out of stone, similar to the type that the cliff-thing was made of. A lake was visible behind it, close to a mountain. Trees were extremely abundant around the house, but there was a clear view of the house from our vantage point. It looked free and protected at the same time.

It was paradise in house form. Epicness.

We all gasped simultaneously. It was pretty funny.

"What does it look like?" Iggy didn't gasp. Gasp!

"Paradise in house form, Iggy," I replied. My voice was hollow with amazement.

Nudge broke free of the trance by dashing ahead. Obviously, we ran after her.

She threw open the door, and we were greeted by more awesomeness. There was giant staircase! A hallway which led to a kitchen! A dining room! A living room with a giant TV!

I think I squealed at more than one point.

Anyway, we explored the downstairs first. There was, as I said, a big kitchen with a stocked fridge (thankfully), a living room with a computer and TV, and a dining room that was actually an extension of the kitchen.

I loved it!!!

Then we tackled upstairs. Dr. Martinez watched all of this with an amused expression on her face.

Anyway, we found seven bedrooms, one for each kid. There were five bathrooms. Yes, I know, a lot of rooms, but lemme tell you, this house was HUGE.

Everyone's room had been pre-painted by the CSM, apparently. They had even put labels on the doors of each room so we could identify who's was who's. So this meant we couldn't "accidently" put Fang in the soft pink/purple room. Dang.

Iggy's assigned room was at the end of the hallway. The bathrooms were scattered between the rooms, by the way. His room was a pale blue. It was connected to Gazzy's room by the bathroom that separated them. There was a door into it from each of there rooms.

Gazzy's was green. It was a foresty green, not a neon green. It was a tad smaller than Iggy's.

Fang was next. His room was gray. A dark gray. It fit him quite well, though I found it very dull. Oddly enough, there was small, bright yellow spot on one side of the room. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that, in small writing, it said in it, "Thought you needed some color in here". Smart person.

Fang had a master bedroom, which I discovered meant he had his own personal bathroom attached to it.

Max's was beside his. Hers was also a master bedroom, and it was a dull red. It made me feel like I was in the middle of a fire, safe and warm.

Nudge was after that, and hers was… well, we had a ten minute argument on whether it was pink or purple. Angel said it was both. We stopped after that.

Angel and Nudge had a connecting bathroom like Gazzy and Iggy had. Angel's room was a light blue, more sky-blue than Iggy's. She looked seriously like an angel in the sky with that room.

Mine was last. I had a master bedroom, though it was smaller than Fang's and Max's. I loved it inside. It was white, and a note on the door said, "Sorry we couldn't do much with it! You're going to have to decorate it yourself."

Okay then. Well, it was simple, had a large window, and had a bathroom. I was happy with it.

We were all happy. We had our own house! This was amazing! And now, for the squeal that you all knew was coming; SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

* * *

**Okay! –fireworks shoot off- We have reached a grand total of twenty chapters so far! Let's get a round of applause –applause in background-.**

**So, thanks to all of you that have reviewed so far!**

**I might just go back and redo some of the earliest chapters… maybe…**

**But anyway, thanks again to all that have reviewed so far! And as you may know, Spark's legends consist of many main animals.**

**And ironically enough, all of them live in Colorado. Oh, sweet irony, how I love thee…**


	21. Chapter 21

Well, yesterday, we explored, I got paint in lots of colors to paint my room in (it's going to look like a forest when I'm done), and we explored again.

The next day- wait, that's today? Oh yeah…- I was looking up reference pictures for trees and how to draw them. Yes I had trees outside. Do I want to use them? Well, I will, but I don't know how to draw a tree.

Well, anyway, Max was looking over my shoulder at where I was on Google. I had discovered the internet. I've rarely been near it before.

I like.

I was sketching a tree out like the computer guide said to, so I could practice them for my room. It was coming along nicely. Max said, "Wow. You're good at art."

I replied with, "Thank you. I'm the best in the flock."

Max snorted in amusement. "Your modesty amazes me."

"I know. It's one of my many amazing qualities."

Max did something known as a facepalm.

I didn't know why.

After recovering, Max turned to me and said what she apparently had wanted to say before seeing my tree. "How old are you, Spark?"

"Thirteen."

"How long have you been thirteen?"

"A while."

Max groaned and muttered something that sounded like "dumb twilight". I have no idea what she was talking about.

The she turned to me again. "I think I'm going to declare a birthday on Saturday. That's two days away. The entire flock, except Angel, have been their current ages for a long while."

I was confused. "Which are…?"

Max sighed. "Me, Fang, and Iggy are fourteen. Nudge is eleven. You know how old you are. The Gasman is eight. Angel _was_ six, but she decided to spontaneously turn seven a couple weeks before you joined us."

"Ahem. And me?"

Total had joined us earlier yesterday, with Aikla tagging along behind him.

I shot a look at him. "You never told us your age."

Total looked affronted. "Well, it is rude to ask. But I'm… not going to say my age because that would be rude to answer that…"

Max and I exchanged a _What the heck?_ look. Total had simply talked in circles.

Aikla as it turns out wasn't far behind. She stuck her head around the wall and barked, "Total?"

"Yes, my darling?" Total said back, reverting to his native language of dog. How did I know this? Max's face became confused.

"Oh. I was wondering where you were," the Malamute replied.

"Right here. Now, let's go see if Iggy has anything for us to eat, shall we?" Total trotted over to Aikla and guided her away.

Still a bit confused, Max turned to me. "What was that about?"

"It was fluff pretty much. They're going to mob Iggy for food."

"Ouch…"

"Yeah…"

We were silent for a moment, then I got up and headed out the back door. "I'm going out to explore, okay?" I called to Max.

"Fine. But remember, think about the presents for the flock's birthday."

"Okay…" I trailed off before jumping out the door. I only bothered to transform before taking off running. I was a mountain lion.

It felt so good to run. Not for your life, or for fun, but just for the purpose to run. Your legs pump, your heart beats fast, and the wind blows your fur and/or hair. It's as good as flying, I'll admit, at least in animal form. It's as good as flying, but in a different way. Both make you feel free.

I didn't go that far before I had to slow down. I'm mortal. I actually get tired. So that's why I stopped, next to a lightning struck tree in the clearing, gasping for air.

Then, after I was taking smaller breaths, I smelled something with my puma (that's another name for mountain lion, also cougar is another) senses. It was extremely familiar, even though I had only smelled it as a human… ish…

It was the scent of another mountain lion. Four, actually. Two were unfamiliar and had the scent on them of a kit. One of the two familiar smells had tinge to it like juniper berries. The other was softer, more pineish than the other.

I stopped in my tracks from where I was padding along. I scented these over and over. Oh. My. Gosh. I never thought I'd smell it again.

When I had first smelled this, it was about a month after I had escaped. I had gotten really far west, though I don't know how far.

That was Nuri and Nova's scents!

HOLY CRAP!!!!

I quickly transformed into human, where I could still scent but not as well. I followed the scent to find my wandering parents.

You see, some cougars have a set territory. Actually, most of them do. But some, like Nuri and Nova, wander and journey about. How else do you think they got in Florida!?

The thing is, humans don't see them doing this.

But what was the kit-scent about?

But, anyway, I was following the scent, which was fairly fresh, through the bushes, through the trees. And sure enough, after a few minutes of this, I heard, very faintly, voices.

There was a female's, high-pitched and little. I didn't know this one. "Nova," it said, "I hear something behind us."

"Me too," replied a little male's, also unfamiliar.

Then, a voice so familiar after seven months of listening to it lecture me and talk to me floated over. Nova. "Nuri, why don't you check it out? I don't hear anything, but the little ones think so."

"Fine."

After this short statement by Nuri, and I was walking all this time, there was a slight crunching of leaves.

Then silence.

"…Spark!?" Nuri's incredulous voice came over, and the male mountain lion step into my sight. He was exactly as I remember him, with tawny fur and an extremely dark tail-tip.

"That's me." I said, stepping forward to meet him. Nuri twisted around towards where Nova was.

"Nova! It's Spark!"

"Spark!?" Nova dashed forward into view. She was also how I remember her, with a few spots on her head that were barely noticeable. The pair of cougar kits stumbled after her.

"Oh my Freespirit and Queen Nature!" I never thought I'd see you again!" she yowled excitedly, moving forward to rub me with her muzzle.

I smiled back. "Neither did I," I whispered back, stroking her behind the ear. I looked towards the kits staring at us like we'd turned blue. "Who are they?"

Nuri answered for me. "Swift and Alant were abandoned by their mother. Actually, their mother died and left them. We decided to take care of them."

The tiny female, who must not have been over two months old, walked to meet me. "I'm Swift, and that's my brother, Alant. You must be Spark. Nova and Nuri talk about you sometimes."

"They say you have wings. You speak like us, but you're a Pinkskin! And you have a tail," Alant said, wide-eyed.

"I do have wings." I opened them to show him. He stared back, awestruck.

Nuri stared at me curiously. "Did you find the people you were looking for?"

"Yeah." I then made a split-second decision almost worthy of Max. "Do you want to meet them?"

Nova and Nuri stared at each other for a moment, before Nova replied, "Of course."

Max's face is going to be priceless when I show up on the doorstep with four mountain lions…


	22. Chapter 22

It took us a while to get back to the house, seeing as we were walking and not running. Alant and Swift sat/lay on my shoulders and arms. Alant had fallen asleep in my crossed arms. Mean while, Swift sat on my shoulder and chatted happily.

Nuri and Nova padded on either side of me. Occasionally, their pelts brushed me.

And soon, we made it to the house. I shifted Alant to one of my arms, where he stirred sleepily, and rang the doorbell.

And who answered it? Max. "Oh, hi Spark," she said, "Why'd you-" She broke off as she saw my friends. All of them. "WHAT THE HECK?!"

"Hi Max. This is Nuri, and that's Nova. I told you about them," I began, waving my hand towards the two pumas on either side of me. "This is Alant, and that's his sister Swift." I gestured toward the last two.

Max's face became the oddest mixture of "Awww…" when she saw the kits, anger, shock, a tad of fear, stress, and a lot of confusion. It was a very funny face.

Alant woke fully up now, and he looked at me and Max confusedly. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's Max. She's the leader of my pack."

"Flock, more like it," muttered Nuri.

Alant blinked at Max. "Hi, Max."

I translated for him. "He says hi."

Smiling slightly, Max waved. I then noticed that Swift was no longer on my shoulder. She was padding towards Max. "Hey, Max! I'm Swift, and I'm the awesome one."

Max bent down to pick her up. I said, "Swift says hi, she's Swift, and she's the awesome one." Max laughed.

Thudding sounds alerted us to Nudge and Gazzy running over. "Max, what's going- THEY'RE SO CUTE!!!" Guess. I dare you to.

Nudge ran over and scooped up Alant. He looked surprised. Poor kit.

Gazzy asked, "Are these your friends, Spark?"

"Yeah."

And then, Dr. Martinez and Angel came. "What's going on?" Dr. Martinez stopped when she saw all of us, including the pumas.

Angel crouched down to stroke Nuri's ear. "They're friendly, Dr. Martinez. These are Spark's adopted parents, pretty much."

After Fang, Iggy, Total, and Aikla were introduced to my 'family', I brought them to my room. They'll be staying for a few days.

So, several hours after we got settled, I learned that everyone knew about Max's declaration of a random mass birthday on Saturday. Dr. Martinez was going to take me, Angel, and Iggy out shopping.

I questioned Max about the sudden statement of a party. She simply shook her head, saying, "Well, the rest of us were in the kitchen, when I asked if they want to go back to school. We haven't had much, you see."

"Neither have I. Continue."

"…They weren't exactly enthusiastic. So, to stop them from arguing with me, because I was trying to convince them to go, I declared a birthday. That sound good?"

"Yes." It made perfect sense.

And then we left. At least, after we'd had a big enough lunch to feed the army. And I had been successfully disguised.

Nudge had smoothed my spiky hair down a bit on the sides, so it wouldn't show my lack of human ears. It looked quite natural, too, and Dr. Martinez managed to find a bandana that would cover my ears when they were flattened. My tail and wings were easy to hide.

On the way to wherever we were going (we were in a car), I wondered about what I'd get for everyone. I shall start with… Angel.

Ooh! She'd probably like a sketchbook. I could get a set of pencils to go with it. She's creative and she sees the world around her in more detail than most.

As for her brother… One of those Nerf gun things. It looked like a Gazzy-ish kind of toy.

Nudge is easy. She'd already told me how she wants to go into fashion. I could get her a sketchbook like Angel, and a book telling a bit on how to design clothes.

Iggy… maybe an MP3 player or something. It could be a cheap one.

I think that Fang would like… uh… a notebook, so he could write while on the go when he doesn't have his precious laptop. He didn't in Africa, and I heard him complaining about it to Max.

Max's perfect gift? A hatchet! But I don't think you can buy those where were headed… WAIT! I think I saw something earlier… It was a really pretty rock… It was silvery and streaked through with blue and green. Perfect. Pretty, and it can be used as a weapon. Bonus!

____________several hours later_____________________

Well, Dr. Martinez was taking Nudge, Fang, Max, and Gazzy out, so I was wrapping presents. I had already found that pretty rock, and this was what I was finishing wrapping right now.

Satisfied, I crammed the presents under the bed, out of sight. Then I opened my window and jumped out of it. I flared my wings slightly to slow me down enough to land.

I turned and dashed into the forest. Along with finding the pretty rock earlier, I thought Id heard something. I was going to check it out now.

I brushed some ferns aside, and heard the sound. It sounded like a deer's voice. How did I know it was a deer? Well, certain species of animals have very distinctive voices. For example, a camel's voice sounded a bit brusque and rough. A cat's was smooth and soft. A deer was quiet.

And this was what I heard now.

I followed the sound, and found a small deer. It was a female, and she was laying on her side, alone, with her left leg held awkwardly out.

"Great Freespirit," I muttered looking at her. The leg was probably broken… So, after a quick talk that confirmed that she had broken her leg and her herd had abandoned her, I lifted her up onto my shoulder. She was a fairly young, small deer.

And I took another animal home. This time, I opened the door by myself, and headed upstairs. Fang caught me as I was turning towards my room. "Is that a deer?"

I spun around, careful not to whack the doe's head on the wall. "Yup. Her name's Fransisca, and she broke her leg. I'm going to heal her up." And with that, I walked into my room.

All the pumas were there. I placed Fransisca the deer down, and looked at the pumas who were eyeing her hungrily. "This is Fransisca. She is not food. Eat her, and bad things will happen."

With that, the mountain lions nodded and turned away.

I dashed downstairs to get a pair of long, straight sticks, some ace bandages, and a bowl of water. I got the needed items, and dashed back. I found Max, Fang, and Nudge sitting in my room looking at the doe. I realized a bit too late that they must have returned from the store.

"Spark… Why is there a deer in your room?" asked Max gently.

"Her name's Fransisca, and she broke her leg. I'm going to heal her so she can live," I said bluntly, and settled down to bind up the leg and set it straight. I gave the doe some water.

Max and Fang got up and left without another comment, but Nudge stayed and watched me.

And so, Spark's Animal Rescue Center began…


	23. Chapter 23

It was the morning of the giant birthday. But I don't even know if the time I was up could even be considered morning, or if it was still night.

It was dark, and stars were still bright. No sunlight existed in the time before dawn, and this is when I was up and running through the woods.

A pair of small birds sat on my shoulders. I was taking them to the house. What I was doing was bringing them to the house, if not for injuries, for food and water. It was a gift that animals accepted gratefully.

So, I had been doing this overnight, and yesterday. Last night, I had quite a lot of animals in my room. All of them actually, except for Fransisca, were uninjured and simply wanted a place to stay for the night.

As I went to open the door of the house I had just arrived at (it was mine, not some stranger's…), it opened by itself. I would've thought ghosts, but Max stood there, looking grumpy.

I bounded up the steps to greet her. "Ma-ax…." I started.

"No. You already have ten animals staying in your room. You don't need another."

I rolled my eyes. Silly Max, hadn't she paid attention to what I had said? "No, Max. _These_ two make ten. This is Speckle and Fleck."

She glared at me. Max didn't like her orders to go challenged. "I don't care what they're called. You don't need them in your room."

I sighed. "All of them, including the pumas, are going to go away today." The knowledge that Nuri and Nova were going to leave made me sad. "Well, except for Fransisca. She's injured, so she needs to stay."

"I don't care. No."

Ignoring her, I went on. "Besides, these two make ten. I don't already have ten. There's the mountain lions, Nuri, Nova, Alant, and Swift, Fransisca the deer, the squirrels Hop, Step, and Jump, and this is Speckle and Fleck, like I said."

Max said a naughty word and rubbed her head in exasperation. She just waved me inside.

If this was how the rest of the day was going to go, this was going to be a long one.

* * *

After I fed and watered every one of my residents, some departed. Speckle and Fleck murmured thanks and leaped out the window.

The three squirrel triplets, Hop, Step, and Jump, followed suit, except with more energetic voices. It was very amusing. They were so enthusiastic, because that's what a squirrel is, they were practically falling over each other to say, "Thank you!!!!" I love squirrels.

After I finished laughing at my squirrely friends, I noticed that the mountain lions were missing. I rushed downstairs to see them waiting outside, by the door. Alant and Swift were wrestling (Swift was winning), and Nuri and Nova watched them. At my approach, Nuri looked up. The rest of the pumas did the same.

"Spark," Nuri said, coming over to me. I felt this would be good-bye. "We must go. I hope we meet again, before our time here is over. If not, hold us in your heart so we will never be lost."

I dipped my head respectfully to him. I crouched down and he placed his forehead against mine. This was how we said good-bye the last time we separated.

Nova padded up next. Alant and Swift had stopped playing, and were now watching me sadly. "Little one," Nova started, pressing her forehead against mine, "stay safe. Live life to its fullest. Never forget the ones you love. I know that you're sad that we have to go, but life goes on."

"I know," I whispered back. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I hated saying bye.

"Don't be sad," Nova said back, "We felt the need to go, to separate. I know that you felt that when you left us first." I nodded. She stepped back and looked me in the eye. "Remember, Spark, you're never alone. And you will always be one of our kits, even if you aren't one of my species or knowing how short of a time you stayed with us." Nova turned to go to where Nuri had gone to the side, when she looked back. "Oh, and remember not to eat frogs. You know what happened last time."

Stifling a giggle, I nodded again. Swift trotted up next. I simply bent down and stroked her. "Spark, I may have known you for only a short time, but I respect you already," she mewed, looking up, "Good luck on your journey of life, and may your prey be fat and slow, the sun bright, the wind gentle, and your path to the sky clear and strong."

The aura of confidence that radiated from her made me sure that she would be a great leader when she was older and bigger. She held herself gracefully, and observed the world around her in detail. Yet she still took the time to make friends and play. This was an odd little kit.

The final puma walked up. It was Alant. He nosed my hand before saying, "Stay strong, Spark. Don't be afraid of differences. And respect the Alpha sometimes." I pet him softly.

Bending down to whisper, I said quietly, "Stand up to your sister sometimes. Don't let Swift boss you around all the time, okay?" I had noticed that Swift sometimes bossed everyone around, acting like a queen of the world. Alant was meeker, quieter, and almost submissive at times to her.

Flashing a glance and me, he dipped his head to me. I smiled slightly, and watched him and the rest of his family run off into the forest. They were strong, smart, and every bit as diverse as humans.

I lowered my head sadly, and saw the flock, Ella, and Dr. Martinez standing in the doorway watching me.

Nudge broke rank and walked almost as softly as a cat up to me. "What was that about not eating frogs?"

I chuckled slightly and remembered that day…

_Flashback_

"_Nuri, what are you eating?" I asked the male cougar. He had something small and green in his paws._

"_It's a frog," Nova said, answering for him. "I personally don't like them, but he does. He'll eat them when he sees one and feels like catching it."_

_Nodding, I observed the little, half-eaten creature. I think I had seen some in the Institute, though no one had told me what they were. "Can I have some?" I asked Nuri curiously._

"_You can catch your own," said he quickly, bending his head down to take another bite of the frog._

_I tried and tried and tried to catch a frog. I had found one quickly, by a stream, but it was far from easy to catch one. Finally, muddy and tired, I pounced on one. I killed it swiftly, and brought it to where Nuri and Nova were watching and laughing their tails off._

"_How do you eat it?"_

_Nuri shrugged. "I slice it open with a claw and then eat it, though you can do it different ways."_

_I did as he suggested and took a bite of frog. It was disgusting._

"And, I was up the entire night puking my guts out," I finished.

Nudge looked disgusted. "You ate a raw frog? Seriously?!"

Embarrassed, I scuffled my feet on the earth. "Well… I never did it again, and I certainly paid for it, didn't I?"

Dr. Martinez, having finished laughing, asked us, "Well, now that that's done, we have a birthday to celebrate, right? All of yours, remember?"

I perked up immediately. All of us headed inside. I heard Ella mutter, "This doesn't include my birthday…" Her mom just rolled her eyes and patted her head.

* * *

**And that's a wrap! The farewell scene was very sad for me to write…**

**Oh well! Life goes on! The sun will still shine, the plot will continue, and this story still needs reviews!**


	24. Chapter 24

Well, we headed inside to face chaos. Lots of chaos. Only this time, it wasn't bad chaos. It was quite the contrary.

You see, before I went outside, I didn't pay much attention to the décor. So, when I finally saw it, I was shell-shocked and more than a little scared.

There was paper and balloons and confetti and sparkly things everywhere. It was very overwhelming.

Now, because I am part cat would normally mean I would start jumping and leaping and playing with all the stuff. The human side won, however.

So I ended up walking calmly, albeit a bit twitchily, over to the carpet where Nudge, Angel, and Gazzy were sitting around the pile of presents expectantly.

I trotted over to join them, everyone else close behind. Iggy plopped down cross-legged and not landing on anyone. Max and Fang sat down more gracefully.

Dr. Martinez yelled, "We'll do this one a time, Angel first, GO!!!"

Well. I don't think Angel could've moved towards the presents faster than if a Velociraptor was after her. I wasn't exactly surprised. I mean, if you suddenly got a bunch of free presents that were all stacked neatly in a pile, and you didn't normally get a lot of stuff, this was awesome. Angel plucked one off the top, read the label, and chucked it at Max.

"Incoming!" I yowled. She shot me a half-amused glare as she caught it easily. Angel was now throwing presents to various people so fast you'd think they were on fire. I got hit on the head by one of mine. Iggy, having heard the impact, laughed and, ironically enough, got hit by one of his.

After the gifts were dealt (and bruises nursed), Angel picked up her first one and read the label out loud. "To Angel, from Fang," she read officially. Then paper flew, and she gasped as a shiny new camera was revealed. The audience oohed and aahed. The little blond-headed girl gently placed the precious camera out of harms way, yet still close to her, and grabbed for a second.

She read, "To Angel, from Nudge", and opened it. Twas… a dress. I don't think it'd fit Angel. It was extremely small, and I realized that this was for- "This'll be awesome on Celeste! Thanks Nudge! She needed a new outfit." Celeste was a stuffed angel bear with a halo and dress. Angel loved it.

I watched interestedly, but I don't feel like memorizing what exactly happened. I remember who got what, though, and paid attention when my present was being unwrapped.

Angel got what everyone is fairly sure about, but not completely sure because Gazzy won't tell us, a bunch of fireworks in a box. Funny thing was, Gazzy took this away after she looked at it and said mysteriously, "You'll see it again tonight." Yep, it was fireworks. Knowing Gazzy, it was likely to be spectacular.

Iggy and Gazzy had combined their gifts, so everyone got a bow of fireworks that the pair whisked away quickly. We all opened the big square packages right after Angel, regardless of order, and they were confiscated.

But after that, Angel ended up with a picture frame from Max. It was silver and very pretty. Then she opened mine. Her face lit up with understanding when she saw it, and her "Thanks Spark!" was sincere. Setting the frame and sketchbook aside, she turned her attention to Gazzy, who was next up.

Gazzy tore open his with a heck of a lot of enthusiasm. First was a gift from Angel. It was a bunch of toy cars. I didn't see much in them, but apparently he did. Fang had given him a book on the history of blowing stuff up. He looked pretty enthusiastic about reading… Iggy and him hadn't exchanged presents, seeing as they had been working on the fireworks together.

A bunch of shredded clothes with the words 'For your bombs' came from Nudge. That would be useful, seeing as you needed kindling to start a fire. As for the Nerf gun from me… well, let's just say that Gazzy got a diabolical look on his face when he saw this. Uh-oh. Max had given him a Nerf gun too. Double Uh-oh.

Oh, yes, and neither Dr. Martinez nor Ella had gotten us anything. We didn't mind. They were spending enough money on us as it was. Total and Aikla were nowhere to be seen.

Nudge had gotten a bunch of clothes from Iggy, Angel, Gazzy, and Max. I don't know their names, but Nudge seemed pretty excited about it. As for me and Fang, we were being different and gotten her stuff other than clothes. Although it was clothing related… Fang had gotten her approximately a bazillion fashion magazines. And then there was me giving Nudge a sketchbook for her own designs. She loved them both.

How did I know? Here's a snippet of what her response sounded like- "Ohmygosh!!!! Ohmygosh!!! Thankyou sooooooooooooooooooo much guys!!!!" and that went on. And on. And on.

Iggy had gone next, acquiring an audiobook from Fang, an MP3 player from Max, a few cooking utensils from Nudge, which would be useful, and a lock picking kit from Angel. Max was glaring at the lock picking kit as if it had done her a great personal wrong. What had the thing done?

Well, anyway, Iggy picked up my present, which was long and hard. He opened it to reveal- a stick.

I can explain. In the middle of the store, I had a brilliant idea for Iggy's present instead of an MP3. I thought a walking stick would be nice.

So, after I'd gone home, I'd eventually found a nice, long oak-wood stick that was thick and durable. It had a knobby top, which was cool. I'd taken it home, sanded it, wrapped it, and stuffed it under the bed.

"…Spark? You got me a stick?" Iggy asked, amused while feeling the stick.

"Yep!" I replied cheerfully while everyone else fought off giggles. "It can be used as a navigation tool and a weapon!" I moved his hand towards the knobby top so he could feel its hardness.

… It took a while for everyone to stop laughing at my gift, but when everyone did stop, it was my turn!

I plucked the first present off the top of my pile. It read "To Spark, From Angel". I ripped the paper open to reveal a neat little notebook. It came with a pen. When I shot a questioning look at Angel she smiled and said, "It's for you to write quotes and your stories in."

Well. This was useful. I opened it to the first page and found a place specifically for a quote. The rest of it was lined. This page had only a couple lines on it.

I decided that I needed a good quote to put in the front. I thought for a moment, and scribbled down something that Nuri had told me after I told him about the Institute. "Everyone has the potential to do good, and everyone has the potential to do evil. What we actually do is up to us."

Nudge cocked her head curiously as she gazed at what I had written. "Who said that?"

"Nuri," I replied softly, closing the notebook and setting it to the side.

I opened Nudge's gift to find a hat in a box. This hat was, I think, a fedora. It had slits for my ears, and could still disguise them.

Max had given me a book filled with animals and info on them. It would be useful for giving me new animals to transform into. Fang had given me a few tiny, perfect models of various animals. There was a tiger, and a wolf, an eagle and a Velociraptor. They were very pretty.

Fang was starting to unwrap his presents when I heard the doorbell ring. I sprang to my feet and yelled, "I'll get it!"

I trotted down the hall to the front door, where the noise had come from. I threw open the door to find- "Jeb!" I yowled happily. He smiled and stepped inside. I then noticed the person next to him. "Oh, Dylan's here too." I added unenthusiastically. He shot me a glare. Good to know that we think the same thing about each other.

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**Okay guys! I realized that the review count is at 45! Thanks so much for your support for this story! Can we see if we can get that number up to 50, maybe?**


	25. Chapter 25

Well. That went over like a ton of bricks.

I heard Max yell, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!" Ignoring this, I led Jeb and Dylan through the house to the living room, where Max was standing quite tense. Really, really tense. She looked like she was going to pounce on something. I hope it's Dylan she gets.

Actually, she looked more likely to attack Jeb. Dylan just stared as Max began yelling quite, quite loudly and fiercely.

"Max, calm down," soothed Fang. Max sat down, a little ruffled, but not yelling.

Jeb, Dylan, and I stared at her with wide eyes before Jeb cleared his throat. "Okay then. Well, anyway, I heard you were having a birthday here, so I came by with Dylan."

Max responded with a glare. Jeb continued, "And I come bearing gifts." And then, after me and several other members of the flock mobbed Jeb for the presents, which happened to be outside, I unwrapped my final present. It was a book called _The Lost World_. The sequel to _Jurassic Park_, which I hadn't quite finished yet…

…But by the time we had calmed down, the sky was finally growing dark. Gazzy decided to go outside to start setting up the fireworks. Iggy followed, even though he wouldn't be lighting them. It was only then that I realized the sheer magnitudes of their pyromania.

"Uh, guys? Isn't that a lot of fireworks?" I asked worriedly. Dylan stood beside me, curious as to what they were doing. He also seemed confused and anxious.

"There's not that many…" responded Iggy as he unloaded a box. Five large boxes of fireworks were going into this presentation. I prayed that the forest wouldn't catch on fire.

Gazzy was unloading a box of sparklers at that time. He looked at them with a mischievous smile on his face. "These'll be fun," he said.

"Did you make those yourself?" asked Dylan curiously.

"Yep! Well, not all of it. We took some store-bought sparklers, and changed them up a bit so they'll be more fun."

Oh gosh. _More_ fun? And I thought regular sparklers were dangerous…

By the time Gazzy and Iggy finished setting up the fireworks, it was dark enough to light them. Ella and Dr. Martinez managed to find some picnic blankets, and they spread them out for us to sit on. We all sat in a neat little line, oddly enough.

Ella, Dr. Martinez, and Jeb were shunned to one side. Well, not really shunned, but whatever. Nudge and Angel sat next to each other, then came Dylan, me, and Iggy. Max and Fang were on the other side. Gazzy was lighting the fireworks.

Which I wasn't sure was a good idea.

But I didn't have any choice in the matter, now did I?

But the stars were finally coming out, it was warm night, I had a bunch of new stuff, and a flock. Life was good. Dylan wasn't acting like an idiot either, which was a plus.

Then Gazzy lit the first firework. Actually, it was just one huge firework, because he had explained to me that it was based on a timing system. He simply had to light it once, and the entire show would proceed. It was still very dangerous though.

I watched the spark get closer to the actually firework system. Gazzy dashed over to a little music player thing and pressed play. He even had the show set to music. It was amazing what he and Iggy had done so quickly. Sure, Max had given them free rein of the kitchen and its fire-making materials, but still.

A single, brilliant white firework streaked up into the sky. It went considerably high before exploding into a simple star. At the same time, twin red rockets shot up and burst into a huge amount of tiny sparks. The noise rocked me. It sounded like thunder.

As more and more of the fire went up, Dylan looked wistfully at the sky. "I wonder what it'd be like to fly among that," he asked himself.

I shot him a glance before turning my attention to the sky. "Dangerous, really," I replied. Dylan looked up, surprised that I had answered him nonhostily. "That's exploding fire up there. It'd look pretty from down here, but you'd catch your wings on fire. Plus, it's really loud, like a thunderstorm up there. It's already so loud down here…"

I trailed off as Dylan nodded. "Okay. I was just wondering." Then he sighed and looked down, missing a firework of epic proportions turn into a ginormous star which turned into smaller stars of gold. Very cool.

Cocking my head to the side, I stared at him, wondering why he looked kind of sad. He eventually looked up at me and said, "Okay, I was really wondering what it'd be like to fly."

My eyes widened in shock. "You can't fly!?"

Dylan shook his head. "No. I've not learned yet."

Just then a huge, white-blue firecracker shot up quickly, followed by several more in gold. They would've drowned out what I was going to say, so I stopped talking.

By this time Dylan had turned his attention back to the fireworks, so I didn't talk. Suddenly, a single copper and ivory streak flew up and burst into sparks, shaped like a feather. Max's feather.

A blue one did the same. Fang. Then a light golden brown, a white-gray, a light brown, a white, and a gold. Nudge, Iggy, Gazzy, Angel, me. My feather wasn't black because that wouldn't show up. It was the same case for Fang.

It did it again, all at once this time instead of one after the other. This time, smaller, lower down fireworks of white-blue and gold exploded underneath it.

Everyone oohed at this. Iggy, sitting beside me, tilted his face up. I know he couldn't see it, but the sound must have been magnificent.

I turned my attention back to Dylan, who was watching Fang and Max. I twisted around to see what he was looking at, and saw that Fang had his arms around Max. Both were relaxed and watching the finale. Even as I watched, Fang pulled Max closer.

A single, giant orange and red flame burst in the sky. At this moment, Fang and Max kissed. I turned away, slightly amused, but stopped at the sight of Dylan's face. It was heartbroken, and his eyes were filled with pain.

I realized what this meant. It said that all he had been raised on, brainwashed no doubt, couldn't be real. The poor bird-kid…

A final blue, gold, and white firework went up, and exploded with a single, earth-shaking boom. And that was it. The show was over.

Gazzy then produced the sparklers. Everyone, excluding the adults, grabbed some and started using them. Dylan even joined in, albeit a bit unenthusiastically. I took three in each hand, spread them out, and acted like they were wings. The effect was very cool.

Nudge was chasing after Gazzy with a sparkler held threateningly at him. He was running away, laughing. It would've been completely fine, but Gazzy was running towards the house madly in an effort to get away from the pink sparks.

I followed quickly, thinking that this was going to be interesting. Max and Angel came too, with Ella and the adults behind. Dylan stayed behind and twirled his around. Fang was nowhere to be seen, oddly enough.

Gazzy dashed inside, and went into a fighting position with a sparkler held like a sword. Nudge stood on one side of the couch with her pink weapon, Gazzy on the other side with a green.

Leaping towards Gazzy, Nudge raised her sparkler high. Gazzy parried with a blow of his, knocking it away from him. Nudge rolled neatly away, keeping the sparkler off the ground.

However, when Gazzy had done this, it had knocked his stick out of his hand. The sparkler fell, tumbling over itself- and promptly landed on the couch, still fully lit.

The couch burst into flames.

The wave of heat washed over me. I screamed in shock, and from the sound of things Nudge and Angel had done the same.

Max practically flew towards Gazzy, throwing him out of the way of the fire. Dr. Martinez and Jeb dashed over towards where we kept towels, and Ella twisted the water on.

I, flooded with adrenaline and the kind of energy that only comes from shock, transformed into a tiger. Racing over to Gazzy, I threw him onto my back where he scrambled to get a grip but eventually held on. I grabbed Angel by her shirt and sprinted out the door to safety. Nudge sped after me.

Once safely away from the flames, I dropped Angel on the ground and panted. Gazzy slid off of me and went to his sister. Carrying both of them at once in a form that wasn't too big was hard.

I slid back to human form and sat, tired. Nudge sat down beside me, Iggy next to her. I hadn't noticed that he had come with us.

It seemed like an eternity of listening to Max, Dr. Martinez, and Jeb smacking out the fire with wet towels. However, finally, Max came out, smoke-streaked and tired, and told us it was okay to come back in.


	26. Chapter 26

**Well, first off on this post, this story has hit fifty reviews! Yay! The reviewer that made the record was… Zoe625! Congrats, Zoe625! I'm going to carry a tradition over from the **_**Warriors**_** realm, and give you a virtual plushie of Spark with Alant and Swift.**

**Thanks to all that have reviewed so far! But this plot is only just beginning…**

* * *

The day after the birthday, everyone was quieter. Still happy, oh yes, but quieter, a bit more subdued. The surprise at the flaming furniture hadn't worn off yet.

Max glared at Dylan and Fang. I heard they fought last night. Over what, I'm not sure, but no one seemed to be physically hurt.

Dylan seemed to be hurt emotionally. He avoided Max's gaze almost shamefully. He reminded me of a wolf shying away from the Alpha who was mad at him. Dylan didn't like to stay in the same room as her, either, unusually.

I finally took pity on him an hour or two after noon. "Hey," I said, approaching him.

"Hi," he replied, looking up.

"Well, you know how you said last night that you couldn't fly?"

"Yeah," he responded, seeming a bit wary.

"Erm, I can teach you if you want," I said quickly, glancing down at my feet.

Dylan just stared at me. I thought he had forgotten how to talk until he got to his feet. "That'd be nice."

And so, we headed out the door to the back… not really yard, but behind the house. There was a nice big rock that would serve as a good place to start flying.

I climbed to the top of the rock, oddly enough getting on all fours to get up its steep surface. I straightened up and faced Dylan, who had remained at the bottom.

"Right," I started, "Flying. It's hard, it's takes a while to get good at it, but it's incredibly worth it. You feel so free while doing it…"

Dylan continued to watch attentively as I trailed off. I shook my head and continued. "Plus, it's good for survival and fighting, and looks beautiful." I extended my wings of a golden eagle. "So, Dylan. Are you ready to learn?"

He nodded eagerly. I showed him how to do a really big jump before extending wings for grace and power. He imitated me almost flawlessly.

We weren't quite flying yet, we were still working on good takeoffs, when Max poked her head outside and hollered, "Guys! Come in!" We had only been outside for half an hour- what could've happened?

Well, as it turns out, Dr. Martinez and Ella were standing by the door with packed bags. It dawned on me that they needed to get back to Arizona.

"Sorry, guys, for the sudden decision," Dr. Martinez apologized, "But I just got a call saying I needed to get back ASAP."

Ella seemed sad. She hugged all of us, and headed outside, not wanting to prolong this any longer. Total and Aikla came dashing down too. "We're going to go with them, too," said Total.

Angel was heartbroken. We were all quite, quite sad, and didn't want to drag this out, so we parted ways quickly.

Everyone ended up quieter after they left. Jeb came into the room, and smiled. "This is just like old times, right?"

Max glowered at him. I remembered that she had told be that he had left them a few years ago randomly, and scared the feathers off of them before showing up a bad guy again. I didn't have any personal relation with this, so I simply ignored it.

Jeb trailed off, not smiling anymore, and I decided to break the tension by turning to Dylan again. "Shall I continue the flying lesson?"

He nodded. "Yes please."

We ended up attracting an audience, actually, that consisted of Angel, Nudge, and Jeb. I climbed onto my big rock again and faced Dylan once more. "Right. Now that we're back, let's try that last takeoff again, shall we?"

Dylan complied, climbing onto the rock with me and leaping off, mostly high but out a bit so he wouldn't land on me. His wings whooshed open quickly, and he landed neatly on the ground, dust puffing up around his feet.

I smiled in approval, and climbed down. "Okay, do that again, but flap your wings at the top of your jump, okay?"

His eyes glinted in surprise. "Wait- this means I'll be flying, right?"

I laughed, then touched his shoulder. "Yup. Just try your best, and remember how to land on your feet, and you'll be fine. Don't go too high, though."

Dylan nodded enthusiastically, and clambered to the top of the gray rock. He took a deep breath and tensed to spring. I also tensed my muscles, readying myself to transform and catch him if he got too high and fell. Dylan was tall, as tall as Iggy and Fang, which meant a little over six feet. He was also more muscly than either of them, at least showing. I think this came from more food than normal.

Now, I am a little over five feet tall, skinny enough to be considered scrawny, and not the strongest. I make up for my lack of strength with speed. All the speed in the world would not catch Dylan if he plummets. The only way to do that would to shape-shift into something bigger. I would have wings to fly with and blue eyes no matter what shape I took. They ruined any perfect disguise I could do.

Dylan's leap scattered a few small pebbles from the top of the rock and broke into my thoughts. I snapped my head up, watching his aerial arc. Just at the height of the jump, his wings snapped open with a loud whoosh, like the last time. He pushed down with them, hard enough for me to really feel the wind they generated.

And Dylan was truly flying.

He continued flapping, climbing higher and higher into the sky. I grinned and leaped up to join him.

Unfortunately, he was climbing higher and higher, not figuring out how to swoop and turn and vie like a bird. That would come. Right now, he just needed practice.

I flew over him and guided him so that he was able to come downwards. I was a bit worried, seeing as landings were more dangerous and harder to do than take-offs. I yelled, "Just watch what I do and follow," before swooping down gently and landing gracefully on my feet.

I turned in time to see Dylan flap, not as elegantly as me, downwards, towards the ground. He was imitating me a little too closely, because he almost landed on me. I fell out of harm's way in time to see him come to a running halt- almost, but not quite close enough to land on me.

I felt foolish for overreacting, and was starting to rise when a hand extended into my sight. I followed the hand up, and saw Dylan reaching down. I took the hand and got up, feeling self-conscious.

Applause reached my ears. Angel, Nudge, and Jeb were all applauding Dylan for flying. I smiled at him and he grinned back.

Max poked her head out of the house and yelled, (I'm feeling a bit of déjà vu here…) "Guys, Fang and I are going out for a flight! We'll be back in a bit!"

With that, she and Fang leaped out the door and took off, effortless as a hawk. We watched them go, then Jeb stood up and said, "We might as well go inside, then." We all agreed, and we walked in on Gazzy and Iggy doing something… From what I could see, it was using some of the shredded clothes, an alarm clock, and some cooking oil. Uh-oh.

Jeb snapped, "Put it away," and amazingly, they did as he asked.

We ended up sitting in the living room, me by the window that showed the back not-yard. We chatted happily for a few minutes, when, Angel, who was sitting beside me, suddenly stiffened. I turned to her and asked questioningly, "What is it?"

Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked at me and whispered, "Erasers. They're coming. I don't know why, or how, but they are."

…Um…. I didn't see any trouble from the pink pencil toppers… Apparently, everyone except Dylan and me did. Nudge squealed in shock, and Iggy froze. Jeb shouted, "What?! They're all supposed to be dead!"

I raised my hand above the squabble, asking, "Uh, what's the danger from an eraser? I don't see what they can do, unless they can erase us to death…"

Gazzy looked at me and moaned slightly. "Not that kind of eraser. This kind of Eraser is a wolf-human hybrid. They're very bad news!"

_Oh_. That explained a lot.

I jumped up and headed for the kitchen right by the living room. Oddly enough, everyone followed. "What're you doing?" asked Nudge curiously, watching me dig through a draw.

I produced a few large knives. "Would these help?" I inquired.

Jeb picked one up. "A bit, though I think it'd be better to hide these. We can fight without them, and we don't want the Erasers to get them."

So we hid them. I cocked my ears to the side, tail flicking. I heard at the very edge of my hearing a slight flapping sound. It was heavier than any of the flock, or the M-Geeks we had encountered before.

Erasers. So apparently they can fly, too.

I spun around to warn everyone, and instead saw Dylan looking very scared. I ducked down beside him. "What's wrong?"

He looked at me sadly. "I don't know how to fight."

I blinked in surprise, and pulled him up from his sitting position. "Then I'll make sure you're safe," I promised. He gave me a half-smile, and I led him over to the rest of the group.

"So, how do we fight these Erasers? Just normal street fight or what?" I asked.

Iggy was about to reply when suddenly, all of heck broke loose in the form of _somethings_ shattering the window glass and coming into the house. They roared, and launched themselves at us.

Oh joy.


	27. Chapter 27

So this was an Eraser… Well, I think one word describes it: Ugly.

It was… almost human like body-wise, but a really bulked-up human. Coarse, wolfy fur grew out of the forelimbs and head. The head itself was wolf-like, with a pointed muzzle and yellow eyes. The muzzle was filled with sharp, pointy teeth. Um, not the picture of inviting…

These things were definitely not the little pink things on the top of pencils.

And these non-pink things were launching themselves at us at a high speed, snarling ferociously.

And so, the fight began.

Jeb and Dylan dove into a corner of the kitchen rather fast. This corner happened to be right behind me. Dylan was going to take me up on my promise to keep him safe. And Jeb was going to join him. Lovely.

Either way, one giant ugly Eraser flew at me. I could see wings folded on its back.

These non-pencil-toppers seemed like they would be harder to fight than the M-Geeks.

I was right.

I ducked barely out of the way and kicked it to move the direction of its force. It rolled over and growled at me. I snarled back, unsheathing my claws.

I heard it snicker, saying, "Here, kitty, there's a good kitty." I was huffed. In other words, for those of you that don't speak Spark, I was angry and frustrated at him.

But it leaped at me again, claws and hands extended. It had claws on its fingertips. Weird.

I dodged, but not enough. One claw raked down my jawbone, and I cried out in pain. Good golly, it hurt! I twisted around and raked my claws down its face in response. I don't know whether cat or wolf claws hurt more.

This was not working, not working at ALL. These things moved quickly and naturally, as well as unpredictably. I kept getting scratched.

Just as I was about to jump at it again, a second Eraser joined the party. I backed up until I was nearly on top of Dylan and Jeb. I had to think, fast, because this was not good.

I wasn't strong enough to defeat them. My claws and speed wouldn't do enough. The Erasers were a lot bigger and stronger than me. This wasn't going to end well unless- WAIT! I HAVE AN IDEA!

The Erasers came closer. Meanwhile, in the background, I saw Gazzy leap into the air brandishing a mixer threateningly.

Looking again at my opponents, I saw that one of them got a sort of twisted smile on its face. "There's a good little kitty," it barked/growled.

I smiled back, stepping away from Dylan and Jab a bit. Mine was filled with deadly anticipation. "I know I'm a kitty," I purred back, tensing and preparing for my new technique I had thought about, "but don't you know that cats don't take orders from humans, let alone dogs?"

The Erasers growled at me, preparing to spring. I shot, "Please don't be alarmed," at Jeb and Dylan before turning to my adversaries again. I grinned, showing my teeth, and transformed into the form I was most comfortable in after Africa: a Utahraptor.

Ironically enough, the Colorado/Utah-ish area was home to the Utahraptor once. In other words, where I was now.

My muzzle elongated, I grew much taller, though not big enough to touch the top of our very high kitchen ceiling. My tail grew longer and stiffer, perfect for balance, and my clothes faded into my skin. By this time the green scales had formed, and by the time my short transformation was done, I was showing off a large set of very large and pointy teeth at the Erasers.

I think Dylan screamed in shock behind me. Whoops.

Throwing back my feather-crested head, I snarled at them. I couldn't roar, roaring was for tyrannosaurs, not the elegant raptor. One of them blanched for a moment before throwing itself at me with its partner.

Fight as a different form was odd for me, although I adapted quickly. Grabbing one in my jaws and spinning around to whack the other worked pretty well.

It didn't work quite as planned. The one I was trying to grab was too heavy, and I dropped it quickly. The other one thudded into my side, clawing me. I spun around and rolled ninja-raptor style, squishing him under me.

I got up and faced the other Eraser, who had noticed Jeb and Dylan and was stalking towards them. Jeb placed himself in front of Dylan, preparing to fight.

He didn't need to. I used my powerful hind legs to jump high into the air, high enough that I nearly touched the ceiling, and came crashing down able to rake my long toeclaws down its body.

It worked like in the movie! The Eraser was down very quickly. I kicked it away, and launched myself at the second one snarling and using my front limbs to slash it open. Another one down.

I turned and saw a few last Erasers fighting various members of the flock. I attacked the one that was fighting Gazzy with my hind foot again, slashing it once across the belly and then biting its neck hard enough it was snapped. Gazzy shot a grin at me before going for Nudge's Eraser.

Together, we drove the rest of the Erasers away. Shifting back into human form, I had to grab the counter for support. I was exhausted. Two transformations, one into and one out of a Utahraptor as well as fighting fatigued me.

While I was gasping for breath, Dylan came over to me. "Spark?" he asked tentatively, "Are you okay? Was that… thing really you?"

I looked at him tiredly. "Yeah, I can shape-shift. That was a Utahraptor you saw, a type of dinosaur. It drains my energy though," I panted.

He stared at me for a moment before helping me up from where I had slid to the floor. I was barley able to walk, though, I was so tired. With Dylan's support, I wobbled over to the rest of the flock.

We all were a little injured, a little bloodied. Nudge was holding a wing awkwardly (I think she'd sprained it), and Gazzy had a few scrapes and slices on his arms and face. He held a mixer that had bits of flesh in it (ew, ew, EW!) and looked quite pleased with himself.

Iggy had black-eyes, and Angel a few scratches. But nobody seemed to be dying, I was in the worst condition, but I'd live.

"Spark? Are you okay?" asked Angel worriedly. I smiled at her.

"Just tired. I'll be fine."

Jeb came over then, holding a first-aid kit. He looked us all over and opened the box. "Let's get you guys treated," he said.

"What about the bodies?" asked Gazzy.

After we disposed of those, tossed into a convenient canyon that was right by the front of the house, we were treated for injuries by Jeb.

While Iggy was being healed, he turned to Gazzy. "By the way, Gaz, about my mixer…"

Gazzy stood up defiantly. I stared at him in horror. "You mixed someone to death?!" I asked shrilly.

Gazzy looked smug. "I adapted under the circumstances."

… No comment…

I ended up being last in line, after Iggy. Jeb was just starting to clean the deep gash on my jawbone when I heard wingflaps. Max and Fang.

I turned to see them alight on the ground and step into the ruined kitchen. "Holy –censored-," said Max, shocked at the damage, "What happened?"

"Erasers happened," I replied. Talking made the jaw-gash bleed again, as it had just stopped a moment ago, "and not the little pink kind."

"I thought they were all dead," said Fang, checking a smashed cabinet closely.

"So did we," responded Nudge, slightly coldly.

Max flinched slightly from where she was examining Angel. Jeb stood up to clean my wound again.

"It's nice of you to care," started Iggy, rising from the chair that was still beside the table, "seeing as you didn't care enough to stay. Or to depart from your dear Fangy, whom you seem to be staying with 24/7 now."

Max slowly stood, anger flushing her cheeks. Iggy didn't stop there. "Face it," he continued, "you weren't there when we needed you. You and Fang care more about each other than the rest of us."

"What? That's crazy!" Max yelled back, "It was chance!"

Angel stood now. "Unless someone saw that our two main fighters left," she said solemnly. Everyone froze, even Jeb who was still fussing over my wound.

Max started to reply, but Angel cut her off. "Look, you guys care more for each other than you do about the rest of us." She was referring to Max and Fang, not our Alpha alone, "And we just saw how dangerous that was now. It's time for you to move on, Max, time to leave the flock. Fang, you too."

We stared at her in stunned silence. "Move on?" choked Max, "Leave!?"

"Yes, leave. Go anywhere, start your own little flock, we don't care. Just go," said Angel icily.

Max stumbled backwards, disbelieving. "H-h-how about we take a vote, to see who thinks what about this. All in favor of me and Fang leaving, raise your hand." Obviously she didn't expect us to vote her out.

Angel's hand raised quickly. Iggy followed suit, and Nudge, albeit a bit hesitantly, raised hers too. Gazzy did so also, after a quick look at Angel. Dylan was shaking his head in shock, and Jeb was frozen.

It was left to me. I had to admit, Angel was right. You couldn't approach just Fang or Max now. It was annoying and potentially dangerous. I slowly raised my hand.

Max backed away like she'd been faced with an angry lion. She walked out the door and took off. After casting a single look at us, Fang went after her.

Nobody moved until a single, frustrated, angry, sorrowful, heartbroken, way-too-many-adjectives-used-here-so-I'm-going-to-stop scream from Max ripped through our ears.

* * *

**And so, another chapter finishes. Hope you enjoyed it!~**


	28. Chapter 28

After a long, stunned silence, we all went back to doing what we were doing before; attempting to clean the kitchen. Or at least make it not look like a herd of angry buffalo rampaged through it.

Both options would be hard to achieve.

I didn't even get to start before Jeb leapt up and started dabbing some type of cream on my jaw gash.

"What the heck, Jeb?" I asked in surprise.

He held up a small white tube. "Neosporin," he replied, "It'll keep it from getting infected and help this heal." Jeb moved forward to dab some more on before adding, "I think this is going to scar…"

I grunted acknowledgement, but continued to sit patiently while he bandaged it carefully before heading for my other various scratches and scrapes, none as bad as the one on my cheek. Meanwhile, the remainder of the flock plus Dylan scurried around cleaning up.

By the time Jeb finished up healing me, I had recovered my energy, although I was still slightly tired. However, I was extremely hungry. Therefore, I went to the nearest pantry and mugged it of its contents. When I was finished and licking some peanut butter of my fingers, I turned back to the rest of the group who were doing similar stuff.

Angel clambered up onto the counter then. I watched interestedly as she cleared her throat. Everyone looked up at her. "Okay, guys," she started. I assume she would be taking over the position of Alpha seeing as Max had been… kicked out. "Now that Max and Fang are gone, what should we do now?"

… She sounded like she had planned this… creepy… but Angel continued, "I suggest we go to Hollywood. We could become famous, like we've wanted to!"

Nudge squealed in delight and Gazzy smiled. I was a bit skeptical, and Dylan looked it too. I was about to ask a question when Angel kept going, "So, since we're all up for it, I saw we should leave tomorrow morning. Any comments?"

I raised my hand. Angel pointed to me and gazed at me expectantly. "Er, I don't really want to go…" I said trailing off.

Angel looked at me in surprise. Then she shrugged. Before she could say anything, Dylan added, "I don't really want to go either…"

Shrugging again nonchalantly, Angel stared at the pair of us. "Then you can stay and hold down the fort," she replied.

Surprised, I nodded. Jeb seemed worried though. "Just you four?" he asked Angel, "That's it?"

"Well, you can come with us too, Jeb! That'd be awesome!" Nudge exclaimed.

Jeb sighed but didn't respond. He apparently sensed that he was fighting a losing battle here. Angel accepted this and clapped her hands together happily. "Then tomorrow we head out!" she said happily, getting off the countertop.

_______________________________________________________Time Lapse... the Next Day, Around Noon...__________________________________________________________

"Are you sure you'll be fine?" The only remaining adult fretted.

I patted Jeb's arm soothingly. "We'll be fine. We won't burn down the house or anything like that."

He still didn't move until Nudge gently pulled him towards the car he would be driving. "Come on, Jeb. They have a phone, they'll be fine. Dylan's in love with Max, he won't try anything…"

Uh…

Nudge tugged on Jeb again, and led him a bit reluctantly to his car. They were driving to California. Jeb gave a half-hearted wave before getting into the car and starting the engine.

Within minutes, Dylan and I were watching the last traces of dust show the path of the car. I turned to him and said, "Race you to the big rock."

He gave me a questioning look. "What? You know I can't fly that fast."

"Not flying, beetlebrain. Running!"

"Oh."

I tried again. "So, in a running race around the house, wanna see who wins?"

Dylan grinned at me mischievously. "Okay! Go!"

He took off. "Hey!" I yelled after him, "Not fair!"

He simply laughed and turned the first corner. I skidded around the bend to find Dylan several paces ahead of me. I hissed and pumped my legs faster.

He was cackling as he turned around the house again, the big rock within sight. I ran faster than I thought I could.

He was almost to the rock, and I was two steps behind him.

I solved all my problems with a leap. I flew high and true and- landed right in front of Dylan. Yes! I was winning!

Unfortunately, he tripped over my feet which had not landed moving fast enough. Which therefore caused both of us to do in a feathery heap, laughing.

Dylan ended up right beside be, almost on top of my right arm. As I watched, he reached an arm up and touched the big gray rock that was our destination. We handed landed right in front of it.

"Hey! Not fair!" I yowled, scrambling to my feet.

"It is too!" Dylan shot back at me.

"You're the one who said go before I was ready!"

"You tripped me!"

I humphed and stuck my tongue out at him. He did the same.

Sensing that no progress on who cheated was going to be made, I simply changed the subject. "So, wanna learn how to fight?"

Dylan raised an eyebrow at me, questioning my motives for my sudden subject change. Crap. He was onto me. "Sure," he said, a little worriedly. Then he spotted a rather major flaw in that plan. "Uh, Spark? Don't you fight with claws?"

"Obviously."

"Well, I don't have those."

Oh. That throws a wrench into the plan. "…Uh…. I know!" I practically had a light bulb over my head. "I can teach you the movements for fighting, and I can help you adapt it to your no-claws style!"

Confused, Dylan nodded anyway. I nodded and told him to face the same way I was, towards the rock, yet far enough away that neither of us would break fingers hitting it by accident.

"Okay, I don't know the name of this move," I started, "But I do know that if you do this into someone's neck or armpit it hurts like crazy." To demonstrate, I shot my arm out straight and slight upwards, fast and powerful.

After observing me carefully, Dylan did the same perfectly. I smiled and continued to teach.

We practiced until the sun started to go down. By this time we were doing some basic sparring, with me being super careful not to unsheathe my claws and scratch him.

Dylan was a natural at fighting. Okay, so he was a bit clumsy and his balance was off, but that would come with practice.

He flowed from move to move almost effortlessly. I easily dodged the blows, and struck a couple gentle ones of my own. It was really noticeable that we were getting tired when Dylan launched himself forward to punch my arm, and when I slid to the side he nearly landed on his face.

Chuckling to myself, I pulled him up. Dylan dusted himself off and squinted at the sky. I looked up too. "It's getting dark," I said, "We should go inside and eat. I dunno about you, but I'm starving!"

"I agree," Dylan replied. When we got inside the house, however, we discovered that we both had the cooking ability of an apple.

Dylan and I ended up foraging through the scarred pantry. I came up with a box of cereal and a jar of peanut butter. Turning, I saw Dylan poking his head in the fridge. It was the only thing in the kitchen that had remained undamaged, most likely because it was actually a bit away from the kitchen. That, and the fact that Gazzy had pretty much guarded it.

Triumphantly pulling a jug of milk and some cheese out, Dylan shut the door with his foot. Together, we sat down and feasted on our odd arrangement of food.

After we finished, and moved to the un-wrecked living room, I turned to my companion, who was dozing with eyes half-shut, and asked, "What should we do tomorrow?"

He frowned and sat up. "Um, maybe we could fly a bit, stuff like that," was his response.

Shrugging, I leaned back and closed my eyes. "That sounds good," I said sleepily. Tired and full of food, it was no wonder I drifted off to sleep quickly.

* * *

**Spark and Dylan are so childish sometimes… **


	29. Chapter 29

The week that followed was a peaceful one. I finally finished painting my room, with Dylan's help (Dylan needed a lot of help with his trees… They didn't look a lot like trees…). I taught him how to fight and more on flying until he could hold his own in a fight.

I finished reading _Jurassic Park_ and a bunch of _The Lost World_. I read some to Dylan, and it turns out he could read, albeit not very quickly. And Fransisca the young deer with a broken leg went back to the wild. How, when she didn't having the epic fast healing powers of a mutant?

Well, I actually learned something in my book. I put it to use with her. Fransisca had hardly lost her fawn spots, and so had a bunch more growing to do. What I had done was create a cast that was strong vertically, so Fransisca could run and jump while keeping the fracture safe, but weak horizontally. This meant that by the time she grew too big for it, the cast will break. By the time that happened, her leg would be better. Heck, the cast was even made of decomposable materials!

At the moment, Dylan and I were relaxing. It was almost lunchtime, so Dylan got up to forage for food. I continued reading. I stopped when I heard Dylan's voice. It said, "Uh-oh."

This did not sound good. Putting down my book, I hauled myself out of my chair and went to the kitchen, which was still a mess seeing as we had attempted once to clean it before judging it an impossible task.

Dylan was standing next to an open pantry where we had moved the non-destroyed food to for easy access. I looked inside. It was empty. I turned to the refrigerator. "It's also empty," Dylan commented. I ignored this and opened the fridge. Again, empty.

I twisted around to face Dylan again. "Well," I started cheerfully, "I guess we have to go get some more food!"

"…Do we even have money?"

I grinned, and dashed upstairs. Although he was confused, Dylan followed. I ran to my room and flung open a drawer to reveal money. Cash.

Dylan whistled in awe as he looked in the drawer. "Where'd you get that?"

"Jeb gave it to me. He said he didn't think there was enough food in the cabinet, so he gave me this just in case."

Dylan glanced down at the money again. "So we're going out shopping for food?"

"Yup. Out."

"Why?"

"Well, I have to change so my tail, ears, and wings don't show. Out," I repeated, more firmly this time. Dylan shot me a look and scurried out.

I closed the door after him, and changed into a black skort, a cream t-shirt, and a cheap black faux leather jacket Dr. Martinez bought. I pulled my tail up so it'd wind around my legs instead of staying off the ground. It was uncomfortable, but it worked.

My wings were easily hidden, simply folded under my shirt. My ears… I folded them back, tied a bandanna around my head so only a few spikes of hair were showing, and brushed some on the sides that would normally cover up a human's ears.

Satisfied that I looked like a normal human, I got a wallet and placed as lot of money in it. Finished, I pranced downstairs to find Dylan waiting for me.

I landed neatly in front of him and asked, "Do I look like a human?"

He looked me up and down before proclaiming, "Yep."

I clapped my hands together and opened the back door, "Then let's go!"

We flew quickly. Before long we spotted the closest town, and touched down close to it. I folded my wings again, putting on the black jacket over them. I had carried the jacket in my arms, seeing as it didn't have any slits for my wings.

We walked to town then, and headed to the nearest grocery store. As we entered it, I said to Dylan, "Okay, spilt up, find some food, and we'll meet back at the register in fifteen minutes, got it?"

"Yep."

About five minutes later, I had a basket semi-filled with various items. I was looking at some Poptarts, trying to decide whether to get them or not, when I felt like I was being watched. Suspiciously I turned around and saw a girl holding a can of ravioli staring at me.

I made sure neither my tail, ears nor wings weren't showing. They weren't. I turned back to her, and noted her appearance. She was about my age, maybe a little older, and a bit taller than me. Her hair went just past her shoulders and was a golden-blond. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and blue. Her clothes were normal, except for a black jacket which she had tied around her shoulders instead of her waist like normal.

She looked in all respects normal. I didn't get why she bugged me so much. She shook her head and walked over to me.

"Hi," she said cheerfully.

"Hello," I replied warily.

She laughed slightly before looking at me again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I just thought I'd seen you before."

I cocked my head to the side. "Where?"

She waved her hand carelessly. "I forgot the name, but you were in a store with some stuff like… Birthday presents I guess? The stuff didn't have any relation to one another."

"It was a birthday present," I said, "A bunch, for my adopted siblings."

"Wow. You must have a lot of adopted siblings."

"Yup, I do."

The blond girl looked at her watch before looking up at me apologetically. "I'm sorry, I'd love to stay and chat, you seem like a nice person, but I have to go. Sorry for staring again."

I waved her away. "It's alright."

Giving me half a smile, the girl turned and walked away. Dylan, who was headed towards the cash register at the time, spotted me and asked, "Who was that?"

I frowned, realizing the girl hadn't given me her name. "I have honestly no idea. She didn't tell me who she was."

Dylan frowned. He apparently didn't think much about it, because he pointed to the Poptarts and asked, "Are you gonna buy those?"

I plucked them off the shelf. "Yeah, I guess so."

* * *

**Yes, I know it's short. But pay attention. The plot will move along, and this was kinda necessary to fill in some plotholes. Anyway, reviews would be appreciated!**


	30. Chapter 30

**Me: Hi! I've decided to do author's notes at the front of the story this time.**

**Crim: Does a story even have a front?**

**Me: -shrugs-**

**Crim: Okay then… hey wait a minute, what am I doing here?**

**Me: Because I don't feel like being lonely here.**

**Crim: … LittleSpark. I don't belong in the Maximum Ride section.**

**Me: Well, now you do. Deal with it.**

**Crim: And if I don't want to?**

**Me: Stuff it. If you must complain, save it 'til the end of the chapter.**

**Crim: Fine.**

* * *

Loaded with groceries, Dylan and moi flew back to the house. We went in through the back door, into the kitchen to find- nothing, actually, it was just as we had left it.

I was going to store them when I noticed something. We had a phone, a cabled one, and a tiny red 1 blinked on it. That was odd. It was a zero before we left.

I stared blankly at the machine for a minute before finally realizing that someone had left a message. Oh.

I pressed the button that would play the message. Jeb's voice can on, "_Hey, Spark, Dylan, this is Jeb._"

"Obviously," muttered Dylan from beside me. I shushed him and listened to the message again.

"_Well, Angel says that something came up, and she wants to come and meet us here in Hollywood. We'll pick you up by the-_" Jeb's voice paused before resuming with, "_H in the Hollywood sign in five days. I hope that's enough time. Well, we'll see you in five days!"_ The message cut off then.

I glanced at Dylan and saw faint surprise on his face.

"Well, I guess we have no choice then," started Dylan, "We gotta go to Hollywood."

"Fun," I replied sarcastically.

Dylan nodded. Moving into action, he grabbed two backpacks from a nearby hook. "We should pack, then," he told me.

Dipping my head in response, I plucked as much lightweight yet filling food from the grocery bags as I had gotten. This meant peanut butter and stuff of the like.

Dylan handed me one of the two backpacks before starting to place food items inside. I finished packing mine quickly, so I headed to my room to bundle a few last items in my backpack, including a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I threw in a pen and the notebook where I had started writing my legends in there too.

"Spark!" I heard Dylan yell, "Are you ready to go?" We would have to leave as soon as possible because we couldn't fly very far very fast. Both of us have fairly bad stamina.

"Yup," I replied, "Coming now."

I padded down the stairs while pulling off my bandanna, letting my ears pop up. Ah, that felt better. Shaking my head in relief, I also let my tail drape down to its normal position, which was almost touching the ground but curling up slightly at the end.

I found Dylan lolling in a chair, playing with a small metal thing. "What's that?" I asked.

"A GPS. It has Hollywood in it, and where there's a Hollywood, there's a Hollywood sign."

I shrugged at his logic. "True."

Dylan grinned with pleasure before standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulders. "We might as well go then, right?"

I nodded and followed suit. Dylan reached the back door before me and opened it for me, gesturing for me to go first. I smiled and stepped out into the sunlight.

We both took off, our backpacks settling neatly between our wings. We flew in this manner for who knows how long. It was rather soothing, though, the steady rhythm of our wingbeats.

By the time the sun was midway on its journey to the horizon from the top of the sky, Dylan's flaps were becoming clumsier. They weren't as quiet as before. Dylan had quiet, almost soundless wingbeats like a barn owl, which his wings resembled.

As for me, I was gliding on the wind, flapping only occasionally. My wings were like an eagles, so I was better suited for gliding and long flights whereas Dylan would be excellent for sneaking up on opponents in the dead of night.

"Hey, Dylan, wanna touch down? We can walked for a bit," I suggested.

Dylan didn't respond, instead simply angling a wing down so that he was heading towards the ground.

We landed neatly, and folded our wings back before setting off, walking. The sun was actually almost down when Dylan suddenly stopped.

"Dylan?" I asked, confused. Dylan had gotten an odd expression on his face, like he was seeing something that was far away. It was slightly out of focus too.

"Dylan. What is it?" I repeated. He still didn't respond, keeping that expression on his face. I waved my hand in front of his face. I snapped my fingers, and Dylan still didn't listen. I ended up resorting to a time-honored and almost always working trick. I slapped him.

Dylan jumped. I snickered before saying, "Dude, what was up? You just… stopped."

Blinking furiously, Dylan said, "There's a cave up ahead, we can spend the night there." I was trying not to yowl that that wasn't what I'd asked.

"How do you know that?" I asked, but Dylan had kept walking. I sighed in exasperation and dashed after him.

Neither of us said any more on the matter until we saw- a cave. Just like Dylan had told me.

I didn't let Dylan get away this time. I turned and practically tackled him into a tree. Placing a hand on each shoulder firmly, I stared him straight in the eye and asked slowly but deliberately, "How. Do. You. Know. This?"

Dylan winced, and replied with, "Spark, claws." Oh. I sheathed them and he continued, "I dunno, I was thinking, and I suddenly got a mental image of this cave."

I raised an eyebrow skeptically. "And it took you that long to respond?"

"Well, I was surprised," said he defensively.

I removed my hands from his shoulders before saying, "Okay. Prove your ability to me. What's away from this cave?"

Dylan concentrated for a moment, then said, "There's a fallen log covered in mushrooms not far from here."

I dashed out, searching for this log. Sure enough, it was there, covered in white toadstools.

Running back to Dylan, I saw that he had moved to the inside of the cave. "Okay," I admitted, "You have farsight."

"What?!"

"Farsight. You can see things far away. I wonder…" Trailing off, I thought. "Maybe you can see something in the future, too…"

Dylan shrugged and concentrated. I waited a moment until he snapped out of his trance. "I can't see it that much… but something's going to happen, Spark," he looked at me with huge eyes, "Something big, and something bad. I don't know what it is, though," he added as an afterthought.

I looked at the cave ground for a moment, before flopping on it. Curling into a tight ball, I muttered, "Good night. You've got first watch."

Dylan stared at me disbelievingly, unable to process the fact that I could change the subject so rapidly. Well, I can. It's one of my many skills.

* * *

**Crim: Okay, now I can have my complaint. LittleSpark-**

**Me: Okay folks! I hope you enjoyed that last chapter!**

**Crim: You're not letting me get my say?!**

**Me: Nope.**

**Crim: But you said at the beginning of the chapter…**

**Me: Oh well. Deal with it. Life is tough.**

**Crim: Humph.**

**Me: Well, I might as well say who Crim is and where he's from. You see, Crim is from a different Fanfic, one I started recently. It's so new he hasn't even appeared in it yet! But he will....**

**It's called **_**A Difference of Color**_**, and if you're interested, check it out!**


	31. Chapter 31

Right as the moon was overhead, Dylan woke me up. I attempted to bat his hand away sleepily, but he simply pushed it away and said quietly, "It's your watch."

I pushed myself up, yawning. Blinking, I settled against the cave wall so I could look outside and watch the moon.

It was really, really boring actually. No animals came in the direction of the cave, so there was no one to talk to. I sighed with boredom and faced Dylan.

He was curled into a ball, like the way I slept. His wings were semi-wrapped around him, like a blanket. He wasn't using the backpacks as pillows like I had.

I watched him sleep for a few minutes, feeling a bit stalker-ish while I did so… Watching people sleep is quite a stalking move.

Turning back towards the cave front, I had a thought. Maybe, just maybe… if I can transform fully into an animal, could I do partial transformations too?

Concentrating on my hand, I fixed in my mind the image of a wolf paw. I got the glow, like normal, on my fingertips, where the ripples of light kept spreading over my body seeing as I wasn't transforming. Yet.

Thinking hard, I started the transformation, slowed to a crawl this time. My energy didn't get depleted. Hmm… I was focusing enough that only my hand that I was holding up started to change.

Fur grew on it, dark and coarse. My claws were forced out, shortened, and dulled. My fingers became shorter too. Then it was a wolf's paw. I smiled, only to realized with shock that the change continued to creep up my arm.

I gritted my teeth, and with an enormous effort stopped it in its tracks. Holding the transformation there made me tired, so I reverted my hand to human form. Turning my now human hand around, I clenched my fingers, watching the way they moved.

A hiss of frustration escaped my lips. _I can't do partial transformations_, I thought, _not yet_.

* * *

When the first bits of color flooded the sky, I shook Dylan gently awake. "Dylan," I murmured, "We gotta go, like, now."

Dylan muttered something incomprehensible and waved a hand at me. I rolled my eyes and shook his shoulder. He still didn't respond.

I went to one of the backpacks and foraged inside, eventually finding what I was looking for: one of our many bottles of water.

Unscrewing the lid, I padded over to Dylan and slowly but deliberately poured a stream of the clear liquid onto his forehead.

Dylan sat up so fast that his now-wet hair flung droplets very far. His eyes flew open, wide and blue.

As for me? Well, I cracked up. Setting the water bottle back down carefully, I sat down and laughed. Dylan glared at me while my shoulders shook. "That wasn't funny," he said icily.

Recovering a little sanity, I snickered before replying with, "You should've seen your face though." Then, remembering the face, I started giggling again.

Dylan shot me a nasty glare, and picked up the water bottle from where I had left it. He then dumped the remainder of the water on me. I gasped in surprise and shoved him.

Dylan stumbled. He caught himself and asked, "What was that for?!"

I, busy trying to get as much water off me as possible, responded with, "Well, I don't like water at all."

His face softened. "Sorry, but that was unnecessary to get me awake."

I giggled again, remembering the look on his face… Dylan rolled his eyes.

I stuck my tongue out at him, and he smiled. Opening some of our food, I announced that it was time for breakfast.

After a meal of random items that were generally not breakfast food (I assure you that it was all supposed to be eaten), we took off. I had checked the GPS while eating, so I knew where we were headed.

We flew until noon. Around then, Dylan started looking tired again. I, having the GPS, knew that if we didn't fly constantly today, we wouldn't make it to Hollywood in five- no, four days.

Fortunately, I had a back-up plan.

"Yo, Dylan!" I called over the wind. He glanced at me and flew closer. "Okay, can you get into my backpack and get some peanut butter?"

"…What for!?"

"Just do it."

Dylan flew until he was just above me. After a minute of trial and error We managed to synchronize our wing strokes perfectly. With this position, Dylan unzipped my bag and pulled out a jar of peanut butter. I took it from him carefully before swooping away.

I unscrewed the lid and ate a bunch. Then, handing the jar back to Dylan, I somehow shrugged off my backpack. Don't ask how I managed to do this while flying, let's just say it involved me wriggling, nearly falling out of the sky a few times, and a lot of quick wing flaps.

"Okay, Dylan, take this," I said, handing my backpack off to him.

The poor boy looked very confused. "Why?" he asked wearily.

"Just do it."

"…Fine…"

I took a deep breath and soared so that I was a little ways away from Dylan. Then I concentrated and shape-shifted into something big and powerful.

Well, I've never shifted on the fly before now, so again, I nearly fell out of the sky while doing that. However, I managed to stay alive while turning into a Utahraptor.

With a couple of quick wingbeats, I flew back up to Dylan, who was watching me with amazed eyes. I yowled to him, "Get on my back! And watch the wings!"

Realizing my plan, Dylan swiftly dropped so that he landed squarely in front of my shoulders, in the same place Nudge had sat in Africa. His suddenly added weight made me drop a few feet down before I regained control and flew high enough that I wouldn't be mistaken for anything but a bird.

We actually flew this way until after sunset, with Dylan dozing and occasionally feeding me Poptarts from my back. By the time we finally found a good cave to sleep in by the power of Dylan's farsight, I was more tired than I had been in a while.

I barely had the energy to drag myself into the cave, transform back to normal, and curl up before collapsing. Dylan kept watch the entire night.

* * *

**Crim: I'm still stuck here, aren't I?**

**Me: Yup. Now to my dear readers… haven't you ever wanted to pour water on a sleeping person? It looks fun, doesn't it?**

**Crim: Unless you're the person getting the water poured on…**

**Me: True, True… Well, anyway, join us here, same time (maybe), same channel, for a new chapter of **_**Spark**_** where the journey continues and so does Spark's odd love of peanut butter!**


	32. Chapter 32

Dylan and I traveled towards Hollywood in a similar fashion to the second day. It starts with breakfast and then both of us taking off. I would transform, and Dylan would fly as far as he could. When he was tired he would drop down and ride me, sleeping and occasionally feeding me.

I would then fly as long as possible, which meant into the early night. Then, when I was practically a zombie, we would fly down, I would shape-shift back to human, Dylan would find a nice place to sleep, and I would crash. Dylan kept watch.

This cycle went on for thankfully only a few days. I flew faster with my bigger wings as a raptor, although I had to slow down until Dylan got tired.

By the time the fifth day got around, Dylan and I were flying towards the Hollywood hills, which were in sight. I was extremely grateful, for my long flights were starting to catch up with me.

Now, although the GPS had gotten us to Hollywood, it didn't tell us how to get to the big Hollywood sign. Oh, this was going to be fun.

Currently I was on the very top of a grass covered hill, shading my eyes against the sun and looking around for the sign. How hard could it be to find this big white sign in the middle of a city and hills?

Much harder than you'd think.

"See anything, Dylan?" I called to Dylan, who was looking around with wide eyes.

"Nope."

Then an idea hit me. Not literally, that would hurt, but whatever. "Uh, Dylan? Maybe you could find it with your farsight."

He looked at me and blinked once. I could practically see him thinking, "_Oh_."

Dylan's face contorted with concentration and his eyes got that glazed look that had annoyed me the first time he used farsight. He blinked again and the look cleared up. "Um, it's somewhere around here," he said, motioning with his hand around.

I snorted, "Well, we knew that. Oh well, keep looking."

Squinting, I looked far and near, up and down. Then, on a whim, I looked down, seeing as I was on the edge of a drop on the hill.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??!?!

The sign. Was practically. Under. Our. Noses.

I groaned rather loudly at our ability to not spot a simple, huge sign. Dylan heard me and came racing over with a questioning expression on his face. Wordlessly I waved my hand towards the sign below. Dylan let out a moan of exasperation too.

"It was _right there_ this entire time?!" His voice rose to shrill levels.

I nodded. "Yes, Dylan, but we found it, and that's what counts!" Seeing as this settled the argument, I clambered down towards the sign, landing just behind it. I padded over to the H, and… No one was there. Great.

"And it looks like we're alone. No Angel, no Nudge, no Iggy, no Gazzy, and thankfully no Jeb with wings," I said. I sat down in between the bars of the H, waiting for whoever was coming to get us.

Dylan sat down behind me. We waited for a few moments before I inevitably got bored. I slid off my backpack and pulled out my notebook.

In the middle of a battle I was doodling between a ninja and an apatosaur (a long-neck) with wings, Dylan got up. I didn't take notice of this and continued to draw the feathers on the apatosaur until he said, "Spark. They're coming."

I… wasn't really paying attention to the context of which he was meaning and was in my own little world on my doodle… so I replied oh-so-smartly, "What!? The ninjas are coming!? Let me get my dinosaur-" I broke off as I realized what I was saying.

Dylan gave me a funny look, then said, "Okay, first, what the heck?"

I sniggled **(Yes, that's an actual word) **and replied with, "Well…" and lifting up my drawing so he could see.

After gazing at my lovely work of art for a moment, Dylan gave it back to me. "Okay, that explains a lot… Anyway, the Flock is coming. I won't mention this if you don't pour water on my head while I'm sleeping again, 'kay?"

I hung my head in mock shame. "Yes, O Great One."

He simply rolled his eyes while I stuffed my notebook back in my bag. By the time I had stood up and pulled my backpack on, I could hear the wingbeats of the Flock. I smiled at the sight of all four of them; Iggy, tall and pale; Nudge, energetic and cheerful; Gazzy, hopeful and protective; and finally Angel, the smallest yet dignified member.

They landed and embraced both Dylan and me. Nudge was babbling happily about how awesome being famous was. Angel smiled calmly, and Gazzy grinned widely at us.

Once we finished greeting each other, we flew off, Angel in the lead. "Where are we going?" I shouted towards Angel.

"The hotel," she called back, barely glancing in my direction, "That's where we're staying. I warn you though, there's-"

"We got lotsa paparazzi!" Nudge cut in excitedly.

As she continued to chat about the new life in famousity, Dylan and I exchanged a worried glance. Paparazzi? Well, I guess if anything bad happens (say, get mobbed by reporters) we can simply fly out of there. If that is not an option I could always shape-shift into a Tyrannosaur and scare the pee out of all present. Then I can make a break for it and fight the ninjas! -Wait…

Angel turned and gave me a very funny look. Oops. I guess I forgot to shield my mind… Oh well.

And so, ninjas aside, we flew to the hotel without any incident. No one fell out of the sky, no meteors came and landed on us. But what was I so afraid of?

Well my friends, it was because I was going to face a monster more enthusiastic than squirrels, more horrible than a dragon, and more terrifying than water; Fans.

* * *

**Okay guys, that was chapter 32! (obviously) Now, I'm really sorry about not updating for so long. I have several reasons for this.**

**1)Homework. No other explanation needed.**

**2)My mom kicking me off the computer before I finish a chapter.**

**3)Lack of ideas**

**4)My own laziness and procrastination**

**5) I was working on my other story I'm currently working on, _The Difference of Color_**

**So… yeah…**

**Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! The next update **_**will**_** come sooner, I assure you.**


	33. Chapter 33

I got a feeling- no, not that song, you in the back, stop singing- that Angel had successfully gotten the Flock famous when we reached the hotel.

What did the hotel look like? Well, let's just say once we were spotted there was a whole lot of babble that came up from the direction of it whenever we were spotted. We were flying fairly low, seeing as we didn't have far to go and it just wasn't worth it to soar high up.

"LOOK! THE BIRD KIDS ARE BACK!" some guy yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Is it just me, or are there six of them now, not four?" asked a lady beside him.

"You're right," commented someone beside her.

Somebody said, "No. It's just you. You're delusional." I glared at the dude who said that, but he took no notice.

Then again we were high above where he was, so it was a wasted look anyway.

"Follow me," Angel called towards the rest of us. I did as she said.

Angel led us in a sweeping circle around the hotel, drifting closer and closer to the Earth. Finally she swooped closer towards the front of the hotel, where a space was cleared for the six of us to land. The instant we all had landed and tucked our wings closer in, we were mobbed by the press.

Now, normally I'm not claustrophobic. However, with people pressing up with more questions than Nudge, it's hard not to get very tense. I ended up getting pushed back into the center of the ring the Flock had formed. It turns out that the others did too, and I found myself in between Angel and Dylan.

Then thank the heavens, some security came and got them away from us, allowing the Flock to spread out a tad more and actually have some breathing room. Dylan stayed close by me though. I assume he was just as freaked out as I was.

Once the security had pushed the people back, it was quieter. Angel gazed at the first row of people until the voices had dropped to low murmurs. She looked in control of the situation, like Max had been.

"Alright," she started, "One at a time. We will try to answer as many questions as possible, but our members that just came are tired." She looked around, and picked out a person of a reporter type with brown hair. "You. One question. Go."

He stumbled forward a bit, seeming excited and nervous at the same time. I'm assuming that wings made quite the statement. "Who are these two new people?" he asked.

I should've seen that coming from a mile away. Angel was expecting that, and she smiled. "This is Dylan, who's a bird kid like us, and Spark, who's a bird-kid with some cat genes."

A ripple of muttering went through the crowd. Most of it was questioning and confused. Angel paused and glanced at me. "Spark? Show them."

I had been hiding my tail and flattening my ears, which explained why people were confused. I whipped out my tail from where it had been curled tighter than Nudge's hair, and allowed my ears to prick up. Sound quality improved quite a bit, which meant I could here the sounds of shock ever the more clearly.

After the muttering at my night-colored feline traits died down, Angel pointed at a man with a microphone. He stepped forward much more calmly than the last person, who reminded me of a squirrel. "Where did they come from?" he asked.

I stepped forward and said in a low voice, trying to sound like an FBI person, "That's classified information."

The Flock snickered behind me. I myself was trying not to laugh at the dude's expression.

Angel, still giggling slightly stepped to my side and said, "Well, Spark's from somewhere and Dylan's from somewhere. That's all you're getting out of us."

I smirked a bit and stepped back to my former position, right next to Dylan. A pattern like this continued for, gosh, a long time. By the time Angel said, "Okay, no more questions," I was practically drooping with tiredness. Dylan and I had flown, freaked out, got lost, and mobbed by the press all in one day. That can really drain your energy, you know.

We all walked inside the hotel in an almost pack-like order. Angel was at the front, adorable with gold curls bouncing, with Nudge and Gazzy directly behind her. Iggy padded a step behind Gazzy, and me and Dylan trudged after them from the back.

We got in an elevator, with me being too tired and wanting to go back to my drawing to get excited like the last time I was in an elevator…

_Flashback…_

_Inside, it was very small. It had a rough carpeted floor, light cream walls, and on the same wall as the doors, a large panel. Filled with buttons!_

_Max pressed a button that said '8' on it. The doors slid closed with another ding. Then we began to rise._

_Whoa. I turned to Max. "So… This is an elevator?"_

_She gave me a very strange look. "…Yes…"_

"_It's slow."_

"_I know."_

"_Why don't we just fly up?"_

"_The other people will get freaked out."_

"_But it's faster!"_

"…" _Max dropped her head into her hands with exasperation. The rest of the flock was trying to suppress giggles._

_End Flashback…_

Um… Yeah…

We went quite, quite high. After the doors opened again Angel led us away, down the hall, towards a large door without any windows around it. There was an odd sense of foreboding as I entered the room, and- _Whoa_.

The hotel room where the Flock was staying was huge. Absolutely giant. Positively enormous.

The wall were a pale blue-gray, and painted excellently. The furniture, which included several couches, was either an off-white or dark gray. One entire section of wall was devoted to huge windows, and a balcony was visible outside of it.

There were several doors, too, which were dark gray. Upon closer inspection, Dylan and I saw that they led off to various bedrooms and bathrooms. One of the bedrooms had a Jeb in it.

"Jeb!" I yelled happily, running forward to hug him. He, grinning, put down his book and embraced me back.

"Hey, he said, "I was wondering what was taking so long."

I stood up again and faced him. In a very serious tone I said, "We had to fight off the most terrifying creature on Earth."

Jeb nodded knowingly. "The paparazzi?"

"Yes. Very scary."

After this commenced some exploring of the hotel done by both Dylan and me. We foraged up some food, including tacos and Poptarts. The Flock let us eat for a few minutes before peppering us with questions.

"Why'd it take you so long to get here?" demanded Nudge.

I swallowed before replying with, "Well, we got lost a couple times, we had to hunt for food the last couple days, both of which took up time, and neither Dylan nor I are exactly fast flyers."

"What's you do on the trip?" asked Gazzy.

Dylan talked for me. "Well, we would start the day by Spark getting up, as I kept watch, then we'd hunt for food and fly off. Spark would transform into a Utahraptor, and I would ride her when I was tired. I'd sleep while she was flying, although I'd have to feed her. A bit after sunset we would crash down somewhere that I'd find using my farsight, and Spark would go back to human form and fall asleep. Neither of us got much rest these past few days."

I clapped. "Nice monologue," I praised. He gave me a funny look.

"Farsight?" Angel wondered, "What's that?"

Oh. They didn't know about Dylan's new ability.

"Well, Dylan can see stuff that's far away, without seeing it happen," I explained, "Sometimes, even in the future!"

The Flock and Jeb oohed and aahed. Having finished my meal, I was tired again. Sleep deprivation was catching up to me again. I yawned.

Jeb noticed this and pointed to a door. "That room's empty," he said.

I nodded blearily before stumbling into the room. I barely got to the bed before I fell asleep.

* * *

**Well, I'm updating sooner than last time! Woot!**

**Sadly, this story will come to an end soon. The plot cannot continue forever. But I assure you, there will be something major coming up…. –cackles-….**

**But you don't get to know until it actually happens! :D**

**So… anyway, I think after the story is completed, I'll make a chapter for any questions you have about this! Send 'em in!**

**Oh, and a review would be appreciated, thanks. **


	34. Chapter 34

I dreamed that night. They were confusing and muddled, but they would've made sense if I knew what was going on… I mean, there weren't any flying bananas, thank goodness, if there were, that would've not been right.

Anyway, there was a lot of shouting, and it was dark, dark red and black. I, for the most part, was confused. Dylan popped up a couple times, and so did Max. Then, really spontaneously, it went black. I was wondering what was happening when a single, black feather that gleamed from an unknown source of light floated down.

Then I woke up. Ah, dream endings are always so abrupt…

Something _did_ wake me up, however. It sounded like surprised shouting…

I raised my head sleepily to find that it wasn't just my imagination that the shouts were coming from… they were real. I yawned, and noticed Dylan sitting up groggily from the couch.

"Whas' that?" he asked, tiredness slurring his words.

I shrugged. "Dunno."

I got up and stumbled towards the door, Dylan behind me. Upon opening it I found- A scene I never expected.

Here, I shall describe it: Gazzy and Nudge are facing the balcony, looking tense. Iggy, who's behind them, looks tense as well, but also a wee bit confused. Jeb is next to Iggy, and he looks shocked and nervous. Angel is in the front, standing straight and calmly.

And across from them was… Max and Fang. I hope I'm not the only one confused. "What the…?" Dylan asked from behind me. He must've been looking over my head to see what was so interesting.

At Dylan's voice, everyone's head whipped around to stare at us. "Great," started Angel sarcastically, "_Now_ look what you did! You woke up Spark and Dylan."

Max glared at her. It was surprisingly refreshing to see her trademarked glare again.

Nudge, deciding to change the subject and therefore relieving some tension, looked over at me and Dylan and said, "Oh! You're finally awake! You guys were really out last night. How much sleep did you loose on the way here?"

I rubbed my hand through my hair, trying to A) make sense of why the heck Max and Fang were there and B) spike my black hair up again.

"Too much," I muttered, yawning again. "Why are Max and Fang here?"

Max shot a look at Fang, who returned the look. "Well," Max began, "We were flying around here and saw a sign that said, 'Meet the Bird-Kids! Buy Your Tickets at Some-Random-Website-I-Don't-Remember!'. So we came here, thinking we could rejoin you guys." Frowning, Max turned to look at me and Dylan. "Wait, you just got here?"

Dylan nodded. "Yup. Last night, then we got lost and mobbed by the press."

Max winced. "Ouch. How long did it take you to get here?"

"Four and a half days."

"You guys are rather slow," commented Fang.

I threw up my hands defensively. "Hey, we're slow flyers, by the last couple days we ran out of food so we had to hunt, and we got very tired by the end of the journey! It's not our fault!"

Iggy raised an eyebrow from across the room. I have no idea how he just raises one like that, I always end up raising both when I try that.

Jeb decided to play referee by walking to the center of the room and declaring, "Okay, guys, before this gets ugly, I'm sure that Max and Fang are tired and hungry. We can continue discussing this after they've fed and rested."

Every seriously grumbled at the same time. Except for Jeb, Dylan, and me, but we watched in amusement as the rest all yelled, "JINX! Double jinx! Triple jinx!" and so on.

Eventually we got Max and Fang settled down with food a plenty. And then the Nudgetomic bomb dropped. It affected all of us.

Here's what we sounded like the instant Max and Fang finished their food: "?!?!!?"

I think you can see that we were very excited.

Let me emphasis on that in case you didn't catch that; We were really, really, Really, REALLY, REALLY EXCITED AND STRESSED OUT ABOUT SEEING MAX AND FANG AGAIN!!!

Ahem.

Fang held up a hand and we all stopped asking questions. "One at a time," he said in that calm way of his.

Angel beat the rest of us to the punch. "Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Voice," said Max simply.

Wait, what? "What Voice?"

Gazzy turned to me. "Max has a Voice in her head. It has no name. It tells her stuff."

Ah.

Angel completely ignored this part of the conversation and instead inquired, "What'd it say?"

Max concentrated for a moment. "It said that I needed to get back to you guys, and you weren't in Colorado anymore…"

"…So we came here," finished Fang.

We stared blankly at each other for a few moments before Nudge said slowly, "I don't see any emergency, do you?"

We all shook our heads. "Hmm," I said, thinking, "Maybe Angel had another one of her premonitions and Max's Voice did too. Maybe they warned you guys so that the fate of the universe that is supposed to happen can proceed! That's it!"

I got a lot of funny stares. I met them with a "What?" look.

Jeb, having been silent before, shook his head and said, "Well, does anyone have any ideas about what's going to happen if we're all so worried?"

Silence…

"Um," started Nudge thoughtfully, "Maybe Fang's gonna die? Or one of us." Nudge bit her lip. "I don't want that to happen. Max could save the world, or…"

Max turned to Nudge. "Calm down. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We'll go with the flow."

Turning towards to Jeb, Max asked, "How's Mom and Ella? Is the CSM doing okay?"

Jeb nodded, but before he could say anything I raised my hand and interrupted. "Max? What _is_ the CSM anyway? No one ever told me."

"I was wondering the same thing," added Dylan.

"It's the Coalition to Stop the Madness," replied Angel.

I snorted. "Okay, but what does it _do_?"

"They save the environment," said Fang quietly, "because the planet is in danger."

That was the most absurd idea I'd ever heard. I raised my hand again tentatively. "Uh, guys? I hate to break it to you, but the environment doesn't need saving."

Eight pairs of eyes swiveled to look at me in shock. "Whaaat?!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Nudge shrilly.

I held up a hand to quiet the babble. "Guys," I began, "The planet can take of itself. It's survived two billion years and counting. It's survived the dinosaurs. It's survived the Ice Age, and earthquakes, and meteor impacts, and hurricanes. It'll survive us. It'll be fine."

Gazzy piped up with, "But what about global warming, and the ozone layer going away, and UV radiation coming to the Earth?"

I leaned over and patted his hand. "Gazzy, UV radiation promotes mutation and change. It's good for life. Even if there was, say, a huge radiation accident, life would go on somewhere, no matter what. It's only human life that's in danger, and it's that that we need to help."

I got stared at again. I cleared my throat, my ears twisting back uncomfortably underneath all of the gazes, and said, "So. Whose going to tell Dr. Martinez that her entire organization is pointless?"

The room cleared out surprisingly fast.

* * *

**And so, in about two paragraphs, I have successfully and logically shot down the entire point that the pitiful excuse for a Maximum Ride novel, **_**The Final Warning**_**, was built upon.**

**Simple. Easy. Done. Now I shall go do whatever else I feel like. Court dismissed, bring in the dancing lobsters.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Well, I'm writing this chapter from a school computer instead of doing a book review because I'm not in a book review writing mood. Fortunately, the substitute for my class is oblivious and thinks I am working on my book review. Obviously… no. The side effect for this obliviousness? Well, she treats the class like babies. Not fun, my readers, not fun…**

**Anyhoo, I have two of my fans with me, which is fairly cool. One of them is sitting right beside me, reading a book, and for some odd reason not reading what I am writing…. (she says it's cause I've not written anything yet)… Wait, this is going really off-topic. On with the story!**

* * *

Well… After everyone ran away from my draft to get someone to tell Dr. Martinez that her business was useless, it took me a while to find everyone. I had no idea that they could move that fast.

I found everyone eventually, though…

_Flashback_….

"_Here, bird-kids…" I muttered, creeping through the hotel room like I was hunting something or another, "There's a good little bird-kid… Oh, and Jeb too."_

_Unsurprisingly, no one came out. I must've really scared them. Scratch that- Dr. Martinez must've been scary if you told her something like her organization was useless._

_Stealthily- or at least I think I was- walking down the hall, I saw a closet. Maybe someone was in there._

_I opened it to find a coat hanging down. There was also a dead spider, but no bird-kids or Jeb._

"_Hmm," I said, talking to myself. Then an idea came to me. Hey, if I was alone, I could raid the fridge, right?_

_Grinning to myself, I padded towards the kitchen. I opened the door. I screamed._

_Nudge screamed from inside the fridge. It was a few minutes before we stopped freaking out. "Please, Spark," Nudge whimpered, "Don't make me talk to Dr. M. Please no."_

_I shrugged, said, "Sure," and shut the fridge. Nudge made a muffled sort of "Hey!" sound, but I took no notice._

_Seeing as I couldn't get the chocolate ice cream (Darn), I might as well look for more bird-kids to find and scare._

_I trotted towards Jeb's room. Stepping inside, it was apparently empty. I looked under the bed anyway._

_I laughed. Jeb was curled up in a ball, facing away from me. He practically leaped out of his skin when he heard my cackle, knocking his head on the bottom of the bed._

_Giggling manically, I began the hunt for the remaining Flock members…_

_End Flashback_

And, well, that's the gist of what happened. The Flock had managed to cram themselves into the oddest of spots.

As you know, Nudge was in the fridge and Jeb under his bed. I found Angel on top of a very tall cabinet and shoved as close to the wall as possible. Gazzy was in a suitcase. Iggy had somehow gotten himself inside a bookcase that faced a wall with a gap of about five feet between them. Max had been found on a chair, under a desk. Dylan had climbed inside a giant potted plant.

Fang was still missing. Everyone was sitting at the table, slightly warily, as if expecting me to force them to talk to Dr. Martinez. I looked high and low, but I still didn't see Fang.

A thought dawned on me suddenly as I checked the pantry for the nth time. "Max," I started slowly, "Does Fang have any… special powers?"

"What kind of special powers?" Max replied.

I bit my lip thoughtfully. "Uh… can he turn invisible?"

"Yes. Sorry, Fang," Max apologized.

From a wall I heard, "Dang it, Max!" and Fang materialized amongst us.

I glanced at him. "Nice of you to join us mortals."

He glared at me.

Gazzy piped up with, "Spark? You aren't actually going to make us talk to Dr. Martinez, right?"

"Nope," I responded cheerfully. My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.

We all laughed, then Jeb said, "Okay, how about we go to lunch?" It was lunchtime already?! Well, I guess that Max and Fang had arrived in the morning, then I did my monologue. Then it took me a while to find everyone.

Huh. I guess it _was_ lunchtime.

* * *

Where did we end up going for lunch? Well, I don't know the name exactly. I wasn't bothered enough to look. I do know that it was a pizza parlor, and that we managed to get in ninja-style, therefore not getting mauled by the press.

The waiter's face as we gave our orders was priceless. You see, we people of the winged burned quite a lot of calories, so we need to eat a lot. I'm not going to say just how much pizza we ordered, I'll just say we needed half the restaurant staff to get the pizzas….

As for me? Well, I was content with a medium pizza, although the rest of the Flock, excepting Angel who also got the same size pizza as me, got larges. I ended up with an anchovy, pepperoni, and mushroom pizza with thin crust… Yum…

While I was nomming a particularly loaded with toppings piece, something caught my eye. It was a girl, with piercing blue eyes and long blond hair. She wore a black jacket tied around her shoulders. She was looking as us, the Flock.

My reaction was to do a double take. She looked familiar, somehow… Wait. I think… that was the girl that talked to me in the grocery store! That memory had almost faded by, now, no wonder I hadn't immediately recognized her.

I nudged Dylan with my elbow, seeing as he was sitting beside me. "Dylan," I mumbled, "See that girl?"

He swallowed a piece of his pizza before looking at her. He replied with, "Yes. What's so special about her?"

Huh. So he didn't recognize her either… I whispered back, "She's the one who talked to me in the grocery store a while back."

Dylan's face cleared. "Oh. Wait, why's she here?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Why would she stalk us all the way here?"

"I don't know either." With that said, Dylan's attention returned to his pizza. I continued to watch the blond girl throughout the rest of my meal, and noticed that she seemed to be looking at Fang intently… Hmm…

She didn't do anything, although I noticed that she paid with cash and ate pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni on it… Oh gosh, now _I'm_ sounding like the stalker.

Uh… Anyway, we went home, again having to act like ninjas so we could avoid any fatal injuries. We got into the lobby of the hotel without incident, and also into the elevator. I did not make a fool of myself on it in case you were wondering.

I was actually allowed to unlock to door this time. I opened it cheerfully, seeing as I was full of food and energy and saw something that made everyone stop in their tracks; There were Erasers in our hotel room, obviously waiting for us. And they were not the pink pencil topper kind.

* * *

**And that, children, is called a cliffhanger.**


	36. Chapter 36

**This chapter contains a bit more brutality and blood than my previous ones. Reader discretion is advised.**

* * *

What did we bird-kids do when we found non-pink Erasers in our hotel room? Did we

A)Scream in terror and run away

B)Launch ourselves straight into a fight

C)Stare blankly at the Erasers while they simply sit there

D)Eat a carrot while doing the Caramelldansen and singing "Pants on the Ground"

Well, that should be a hard one, but I'm not going to give you the answer. (The answer is E- none of the above)

What did happen: Max and Fang said a string of naughty words, Iggy looked confused (that is, until Nudge screamed "ERASERS!"), Angel looked very surprised, and Gazzy went into a fighting pose. Dylan did the same, although a bit more tense and scared than the Gasman. As for Jeb, well, he also got into a fighting pose too, although he truly saw the danger in what could happen.

What I did was tense up and unsheathe my claws. I was prepared to tear flesh and fur. In the back of my mind I was remembering my other fight against the wolf-monsters, where my little claws and smallness was not enough to win.

And so, when the tension finally broke and the Erasers leaped at us, I transformed yet again into a Utahraptor. Okay, so I would've been a spinosaur, which is 60 feet long and the biggest carnivorous dino, but I don't think that the hotel people would appreciate it.

One giant Eraser leaped at me with claws extended. I snarled at it and leaped, raising one giant toeclaw to slash. This thing dodged out of the way, but barely.

I landed on one foot and used the other to swing around and step closer to my target. It growled at me, and tried to tackle me. I stepped to the side and grabbed its neck in my now-powerful jaws. I shook my head fiercely to snap it, although before I did I got a long gash in my side.

Growling to myself, I scanned the room for other opponents. There were almost unheard of amounts of Erasers in the room, and most were smart enough not to attack me in my almighty form. I am a Utahraptor, here me roar! Oh, wait, that's T-Rexes that roar… Raptors snarl.

One Eraser, smaller and faster than the last one I'd faced jumped at me. It stopped just outside of my reach, but no matter. I'd get it anyway.

I growled at the Eraser menacingly, flaring my feather crest and unfurling my wings slightly to make me look as big and scary as possible.

When it didn't flinch, I bared my now-bloody teeth, increasing the volume of my snarls. It shied away slightly, but then attacked.

It caught me off guard and managed to cuff me around my head. I swung around angrily, whacking a couple of Erasers behind me in the process with my long tail.

Trading tactics, I reached up one of those blessed long arms of a raptor and slashed the Erasers stomach. Blood spurted out in an angry red spray, and the Eraser howled. I chose that moment to slash once with my long toeclaw across its throat, and it was gone.

Lifting my muzzle from the kill, I surveyed the room. Max and Fang were fighting back to back against five Erasers. Roundhouse kicks were flying. Was that the only type of kick that they knew how to do? Geez, and they say they're good at fighting…

Gazzy was punching, and I hope my eyes didn't deceive me, but he… looked like he was using my style a bit! His fighting was much smoother and more elegant than Max's or Fang's.

Iggy and Nudge seemed to be holding their own, and Jeb was too, amazingly. Well, he was the one who taught the Flock how to fight…

Angel was fine, she was using a combination of mind tricks and classic fighting. It was easy to see that.

And Dylan… he was holding out, too. He was near Jeb, and was jabbing ferociously, driving the Erasers away.

My attention was diverted when not one, but two more Erasers leaped at me. I groaned inwardly. Would the fighting never cease?

Either way, I turned and whacked them both with my tail… which only resulted in a sore tail. Ouch. Not fun.

Wincing, I twisted around and snapped at the Erasers, catching one on the arm. I pulled on it, hard, and with a pop it dislocated from its shoulder. I tried to throw it, but it only resulted in it skidding across the floor.

The other one jumped on me. I bit it as hard as I could on its side. A chunk of flesh easily pulled away, and it screamed, dropping like a fly.

I snarled, then straightened myself up, as tall as I could get. I nearly scraped the ceiling. I did the closest thing to roar I could do in triumph.

You see, I was powerful, I was graceful, I was the raptor. I was the perfection of nature's design, sleek and strong and intelligent. The raptor is sharp-eyed and deadly, as deadly and as beautiful as a finely crafted sword. Modern animals cannot achieve the level of perfection in design as a hunter, for it took the raptor several million years of undisturbed evolution to reach this point.

I didn't have much time to get more egotistical, for an Eraser tackled me from behind. I yelped in shock, and was so startled I tumbled forward, transforming back into a human.

I yelled in pain and surprise as I landed on my left arm while the lower half of my body was in the process of transforming. It still had the huge, muscular legs of the raptor and whip tail for balance. I heard a snap from my arm and felt a thunderbolt of pain.

Whimpering, I landed on my knees, curling up slightly. With my left arm almost definitely broken, my chances of getting out were slim.

The Eraser that stood over me no chuckled in amusement. I growled back, baring my teeth again. The effect was not as much as the one I'd given off as a raptor.

Tucking my left arm close to my torso, I let my right one fall. The claws, not as long as they were moments ago but still sharp, unsheathed.

The Eraser raised one giant, clawed, hairy paw high, preparing to strike a terrible blow. I tensed my self to dodge and forced myself to ignore the pain that throbbed from my left arm.

Before the Eraser could hit me, a tan-colored blur did a magnificent jump kick into its belly. It revealed itself to be Dylan, who was now beating the crap out of his victim. Within seconds it was unconscious.

I used this time to look at the scene around me. Only a couple of Erasers remained, and they were being set upon by the furious Flock. I set my sights back to Dylan, who was now looking at my cradled arm concernedly.

"Is that broken?" he asked quietly.

I hesitated before nodding, saying, "I think it is."

Dylan didn't say anything else, instead reaching out a hand to help me up.

I accepted it and stood up. Max and Fang were dealing with the last two Erasers. Max dealt a punch to one that sent in staggering, and Max leaped on it kicking like a maniac.

Huh. So they_ could_ do kicks other than roundhouse ones…

Fang was squaring off against the final monster. I did a quick head count at this time and saw that every bird-kid plus Jeb was alive and not in mortal danger of dying.

Fang swung a blow at the Eraser, who dodged. It was much bigger than him, but Fang was much faster.

They fight went on for a few minutes, dragging on longer than normal. I could tell that Max was itching to join in, yet all of our instincts told us that this was Fang's fight alone.

Fang's style was an odd combination of mine and Max's styles, strong like Max's, but smooth and elegant like mine.

Eventually Fang got the upper hand and looked like he was bout to deal the final blow. The Eraser didn't look good, but as we watched, its eyes gleamed with the last desperate emotion of prey. It slashed a paw upwards.

The claws hit Fang's throat. All of us let out a gasp of shock and horror as Fang hit the ground and his enemy collapsed beside him.

* * *

**Correction- **_**That **_**is a cliffhanger.**

**Now, imagine, if you will, what Spark looked like while growling at the Eraser. First, think of the Velociraptors from **_**Jurassic Park**_**. Now make them ten feet tall. Add in the feather crest, which is flared, and an angry snarl. The raptor is revealing very large, sharp, bloody teeth. Don't forget the dark wings that are partially extended!**

**Well, I hope you all learned something today. **


	37. Chapter 37

My senses leaped to almost unheard of levels as Fang hit the ground. I was already pumped up with adrenaline, which heightened them, and the pain from my left arm sharpened it even more. A pack member in danger was the only thing left to enhance my senses.

"Fang!" The sound left all of our throats at the same time. Max was leaping towards him before Fang hit the ground. I was slower, dashing over the dead Erasers like a deer. By the time I reached him, the entire Flock was already around him, and Jeb was talking quickly into a phone. I think he was calling some paramedics.

I gasped when I got close enough to see Fang's wound, although it was harder to see because Max was crouching over him. It was a long gash, with torn flesh all around the edges. It was scary, and it was bleeding. Fast.

He was still alive. I could hear his heartbeat. I could also hear a non-bird-kid or Jeb heartbeat behind me faintly… I twisted around and slashed the almost dead Eraser's throat with my right arm. Its heartbeat stopped.

I turned my attention back to Fang. Max was trying to stop the bleeding by putting pressure on the wound, or at least the vein, which was-

"NO MAX NO!" I yowled, startling everyone. I smacked her hands out of the way.

"Spark, you idiot, what are you doing?" she yelled shrilly, "I'm trying to stop the bleeding!"

I sighed. "Max, that also was choking him. Avoid the windpipe, we don't want Fang suffocating because you were trying to stop the bleeding." My tail was fluffed up, which was embarrassing, with stress.

Max shot me a death glare, which I cringed from, and she placed her hand on the vein where Fang's lifeblood was flowing through. "I won't kill him here?"

"No, Max," I groaned. I backed off now as the now hypertense Alpha placed her hands gently on Fang's neck to stop the blood.

I ended up just outside the ring of Flock people. Within moments that were filled with unheard of amounts of stress, I heard the paramedics banging down the hall. The rest heard it too, and they stepped away. Max went to greet them.

I stayed and looked at Fang's face. He was unconscious. I touched my uninjured right hand to his forehead and whispered, "Freespirit protect you, Ravenwings."

Wait a minute- Where the heck had that come from!?

Thankfully, no one noticed my whatever that was.

I ended up getting shoved out of the way by several paramedics in the frantic mood they were always in, a Max, and a Jeb. I landed on my broken arm. It took all I had not to scream in pain.

Moaning softly, I rolled over, trying to get to my feet while not using my arms. Suddenly, a pair of hands lifted me up.

"Thanks," I muttered to Dylan. He looked at my arm.

"Did you fall on it?" he asked.

I nodded. Dylan held out his hands. "May I see?"

Hissing slightly, as it was not my nature to let someone else see a very painful wound, I extended my arm out anyway.

Both of us made a noise of shock. My arm didn't have any odd lumps showing where the bone had broken, but instead it had a ring, almost, of purpley-black bruises running around the middle of it. It looked nasty and burned like fire.

As Dylan examined my wound, I asked, "How do you know about wounds?"

"I got taught some while I was growing up. Just basic stuff, really, like how to set broken bones and help cuts. It was to help me heal myself if necessary."

"Ah."

We were silent for a moment, but our thoughts were interrupted by the paramedics moving Fang onto a gurney thing. They sped him out, with Max dashing after them.

I walked over to Jeb. "Jeb… why is Fang leaving?"

He glanced at me. "His condition is… more stable, but they need to get him more medical treatment at the hospital. I think he'll be fine, but Max went with him."

Before I could reply, Jeb caught sight of my broken arm. "What the heck, Spark? Why didn't you show me your arm sooner?!"

My reply of, "Well, you looked kind of busy," was lost on him. Jeb examined my arm and then, before I could do anything, he did something to it that made the bones pop back together. I yowled in pain, and snatched my arm away while hissing angrily at Jeb.

Jeb backed away quickly. Still growling to myself, I did a check on my arm. It hurt less now, but it still did hurt.

I still hissed at Jeb again for springing that on me with no warning. His face showed a bit of fear at my anger, for I could use my claws, which would easily slice through human skin, as well as my shape-shifting ability. He left to tend to Nudge and Angel, who were huddled together and crying.

Personally, I couldn't blame them. I still had adrenaline pulsing through me, and the bloodlust of a raptor didn't help. Whenever I transformed, the base instincts of that animal were at the back of my mind. I generally didn't notice it, but the raptor's determination to finish the fight successful swamped me more than normal.

Was I losing a handle on my own ability?

Before I could think more on that, Dylan came over. He saw me hiss at Jeb, so I guess that's why he didn't come until now.

"Is your arm better?" he asked gently.

I nodded slightly. "Yeah, Jeb put the bone in the right place. He gave me no warning though, so I snapped at him. Can you blame me for doing that though?"

Dylan shook his head. I glanced at him before looking down again. Dylan continued, quietly, "You were so scary out there, Spark. You were huge, and snarling, and you had sharp teeth and claws. I'm surprised they didn't run. That was a dirty move, pushing you so you'd land on you're arm."

Smiling gratefully up at him, I replied with, "Yeah but… I'm afraid I'm losing my control of it…"

He looked at me, shocked. "Why?"

I lowered my gaze. "Normally, when I transform into an animal, the instincts of that animal are in the back of my mind. It's not that strong, so I ignore it. I didn't even notice them the first couple of times I transformed. But in the battle… Well, a raptor is kinda bloodthirsty. When it tastes blood, it will not stop trying to win the fight. I'm not normally that vicious, and now… the aggressiveness is lingering a bit after the fight. I snapped at Jeb and Max. What's going to happen?"

I finished at the volume of a whisper. Dylan looked at me for a moment before shrugging, saying, "No one knows, Spark. You aren't a violent person naturally. No one can predict the future or change the past. We have to live in the moment and adapt. That's the way of life that you taught me. It's the way of nature. You're so much a part of it… so you should live by it. Trust your true heart, Spark."

I gazed at Dylan for a moment before hugging him with one arm. "You sound like you've watched a lot of _Oprah_," I murmured as he hugged back, "but thanks. Thank you, Dylan."

* * *

**A very sweet ending, don't you think?**


	38. Chapter 38

It was a week and a half after we were attacked. The Flock and me were faring well, due to the fact that we have healing powers that are much faster than normal. Fang was still a bit weak and drawn, although the gash on his neck was now reduced to a pink scar.

My arm was back to almost normal too. I simply had to wear a brace, just in case. Jeb had banned me from shapeshifting while it was still healing in earnest because he didn't want to upset the injury. Now I was allowed to transform again.

And now, ironically enough, it was time for that thingamabob that Angel had arranged. She apparently wanted us to get famous, and so did Nudge. Combined, the two were an unstoppable force. Unfortunately.

And, thanks to the little brown minion of Angel aka Nudge, we were forced to get dressed up. Sorta. Max flat out refused to wear a dress or skirt. I joined her. Fang decided not to wear anything but black, and Dylan was just confused. Those were the only road blocks they encountered.

Max and Fang wore clean t-shirts and shorts. Max had a jacket that she seemed to really like. Iggy wore a suit, almost, but without the jacket. Once again, no one can stand the power of an excited Nudge and Angel.

I was forced into a cream t-shirt and dark blue jeans. My black leather jacket was added as well. I sliced a slit for my tail to poke out of, which worked surprisingly well. My jacket got sliced open so I could extend my wings out at a moments notice.

'Angel' and Nudge were both dressed in fluff and skirts. Gazzy had taken the casual route, somehow avoiding the power of those two, and was wearing a nice shirt and jeans. Dylan had been attacked.

I shall say no more. He did not look very happy about it, however.

Why, do you ask, if the power of Angel and Nudge cannot be resisted did we not, for the most part, dress up that much? Well, if we had our way, many of us wouldn't go to that party-thing at all.

It actually wasn't that bad, although all the people and questions made me a bit uncomfortable. There was food and excitement and LOTS AND LOTS OF chocolate. Mmm….

I ended up getting corned by a crowd of people. One person asked, "Do you have any special abilities?"

I hesitated before answering. An ability might increase my popularity, but might also pose a danger to the Flock. Fortunately, I had lowered my mind barriers and Angel had felt the question. _Go ahead, Spark_, she thought at me, _You might as well tell them about your shape-shifting power. They can't do anything with it, anyway._

_Is Max okay with this?_ I asked warily.

_I'll check_. Less than a second later, Angel was back with, _She says to be careful and don't give much more away._

_Gotcha._

I turned back to the reporters, who were waiting breathlessly for an answer. "I have one," I said, "I can shape-shift."

They all gasped simultaneously. Then they all started babbling questions. I pulled an Angel and took control of the situation by silencing them before letting one person at a time ask a question. The one chosen looked at me in awe. "What can you change into?"

…I should've seen that coming from a mile away. Stifling a groan, I told him, "Mammals and birds, as well as… dinosaurs."

I personally am surprised that none of them passed out from lack of oxygen from the sound of the gasps that came from everyone. Shaking my head in exasperation, I asked, "Any specific animal you want to see? Let's start off basic, though, with a mammal."

A brunette girl yelled, "A wolf!"

I did as she wished, and as I went onto all four legs, I showed off my wings proudly. "You see-" I started to say, but I was cut off.

"We can hear you!" A man said in amazement. This was amusing.

"Obviously. Now, as you can see, I keep my wings and blue eyes no matter what form I turn into. This is rather noticeable on the wolf, seeing as I'm a full-grown wolf now, and I have blue eyes. Adult gray wolves, like me now, have yellow or gold eyes naturally. Only pups have blue eyes," I finished, proudly holding my fluffy tail high.

All of the people massed in front of me nodded with this new knowledge and murmured amongst themselves. Another person piped up with, "How about a peacock? Can you do that?"

Shifting back to human form, I felt a bit tired from my two transformations in a row without the adrenaline from battle to fuel me like the last couple times I've done it. I motioned over a person. "Can you get me a peanut butter sandwich?" I asked, "They're on the table in the back."

The person nodded and dashed back to get one. As he returned I turned to the audience while eating the sandwich. "You see, transforming takes energy and calories. It's getting easier to bear the side effects of as I get better at it, but it's still not fun to get them." I finished half the sandwich and set the other half aside for later. Taking a deep breath, I shifted into peacock form.

Seeing as I'm a female, I didn't have that enormous (and ridiculous) tail and plumage of a male. Seeing questioning looks, I said, "I'm a girl, and it's the boy peacocks that get that tail. Females are more dully colored." I transformed back into a human and ate the rest of my sandwich.

"Okay," I started, "I think you all are ready to see a dinosaur. Now, keep in mind that these came from another world, one we aren't familiar with. Many of them were bigger than a human. With that said, what would you like to see?"

Suggestions were widespread. I got "Triceratops!", "Velociraptor!", "Compy!", "Ankylosaurus!", and "Stegosaurus!", among others. The first name to be shouted out was extremely easy to predict. "Tyrannosaurus Rex!"

I sighed, preparing to shape-shift into something bigger than I've never done before. Then I noticed a problem. "Guys!" I yowled, "Back up! T-Rex is not small! It's forty feet long!"

That got them moving. And it got the Flock's head turning from various points from where we were. "Spark…" Fang started to warn.

Seeing as we were outside, I would have to worry about a ceiling. The people had cleared a space big enough for me to shape-shift in. I stepped into the middle of the space and concentrated on the puny-armed monster. It was very quiet, tense with anticipation, as I began to change.

I got huge, much bigger than I'd ever been before. My tail stiffened and elongated, thickening and becoming scaly. My arms grew a bit, although much less in proportion to the rest of me. My five fingers became two. My head grew huge and jaws powerful, and my teeth became huge, deadly fangs.

I had become one of the deadliest predators ever to walk the Earth.

The rest of the time passed with a blur. I shape-shifted into so many forms. An eagle, a horse, a raptor, a cat, a pterodactyl. I grew tired eventually, although sugar and excitement kept me going.

Sometime I took a break with the rest of the Flock. Fang looked more tired than ever, but we were all happy. It didn't surprised me when Fang announced, "I'm going back to the hotel."

Max looked up at him. "I was about to suggest that. You look really tired."

"I am. Bye, see you when you finish up here," Fang called, taking off and causing a stir in the crowd.

We all smiled at him before going back to entertaining the press. It was almost an hour before Max called it quits. "Okay, guys, my Flock and I are tired. Hope you had fun!"

We waved good-bye before taking off, with people cheering behind us. I grinned at their enthusiasm.

We landed on the balcony, one at a time, and entered the hotel room. Jeb was elsewhere, so it was just us. "Fang!" Max called, "We're back!"

It was eerily quiet in response. You know how in movies they say that it's too quiet? Well, it was like that.

"Fang," I called softly, "Where are you?"

No response.

Feeling wary, I padded into the bedroom he slept in. There was something that wasn't there before. A pure white, folded piece of paper with the words 'To the Flock' written on it. The handwriting was not Fang's. This was more loopy and neat in shape, while Fang's is spiky and messy.

I yowled, "Max! Come here! I found something!"

Her and the rest of the Flock came running. "What is it, Spark?" asked Max, slightly frantic.

I held up the paper wordlessly. Max snatched it up and the rest of us crowded around her as she read. It said-

_Hello, Flock-_

_As you've probably noticed by now, Fang is gone._

_Well, you can look and look and look as hard as you can, but you won't find him. Zip. Nada. Nothing._

We paused here to search desperately for Fang, or any trace of him. There was none. Disheartened and feeling a strong sense of foreboding, we went back to reading the letter.

_I'll bet you just looked now, didn't you? Hahaha…_

Max swore under her breath, "That little…"

_Well, I'll tell you one thing. Fang is not dead._

_Trust me, he's very much alive… I'm just not sure if and when you'll see him again._

_To put it rather bluntly, Fang has been kidnapped. By moi._

_Yes, I admit it. Don't worry, he's safe, unconscious at the moment, but otherwise fine. I'm taking him for my own purposes. This doesn't include needles, scientists, testing, or needles._

_I advise that you don't try to find him, however. Trying to will involve you getting into something deeper and more different and dangerous than good kids like you deserve. Trust me, you'll be better off trying to live without him than looking for Fang. I assure you, yet again, Fang will be fine._

_I have much power, you see. Even Angel won't be able to do much against it. Now, before I leave you hanging, I think it will do well to give you advice._

_Max- Don't be so rash. Think before you do._

_Iggy- Make sure Max doesn't rush off._

_Nudge- Stay cheerful. The world needs your energy._

_Gazzy- Keep being a little trooper, and stay strong for your family._

_Angel- Max is the leader. Don't attempt anything yet. You can be a great leader, just not yet. Learn from Max._

_Spark- You've met me, you just don't realize who I am._

_Dylan- Keep learning and use that knowledge to help the Flock. Stay brave enough to see beyond sight._

_Well, with that done, and nothing more to say, I say good-bye. Adios!_

_Toodles!_

…

?

?

?

!

All of us began to hyperventilate. Fang was gone, kidnapped without a trace. How was this possible? He wouldn't leave without putting up a fight, and there were no signs of one….

Max sank to the ground, uncomprehending. "How is this…. How is this… possible?" she asked herself disbelievingly.

No one had an answer.

Nudge was breathing hard with the shock. "He's…" she trailed off, unable to finish.

"Gone," summed up Iggy.

This was it, then. Fang was gone. A pack member lost. He was gone. Good as dead.

He was my brother, a pack member, one to fight and hunt alongside. He was quieter than all of us, but loyal to the end.

And now he was gone.

* * *

**And that, children, is called a plot twist.**

**Before you kill me –gulps-, I have a few points I'd like to state.**

**1- Isn't that a much better ending than James Patterson's at the end of _Fang_?**

**2- This was really long chapter. I am proud of myself.**

**3- This is the second to last chapter. There's only the epilogue remaining.**

**4- Uh… -disappears in an authoress shaped smoke cloud-**


	39. Epilogue and Author's Note

Three days after Fang was kidnapped was where in time I sat. We had told Jeb ASAP then…. And there was nothing at all we could do about it. All we had left was a feather.

Poof. That's what Gazzy says happened to Fang. Poof.

Heartbroken, we went back to Colorado, to the ruined kitchen. It seemed eternity ago that we had been here, Dylan and I.

None of us said much to each other. All of the Flock were lost in one thought- Where was Fang?

Me and Dylan became closer friends than ever. We both tried to distract ourselves by looking up new things for me to transform into. I also taught Dylan more on flight and fighting, and on the natural world of animals.

We found so many new types of animals. That, and practicing fighting in them, kept both of our minds off Fang. Sometimes, the rest of the Flock would help. I could tell they were feeling Fang's loss worse than us, seeing as they had known him longer.

Either way, we still searched for Fang. We found nothing, although the minor possibility of finding him kept us going.

I went on a search that night. It was cloudless, but windy. I was a wolf, seeing as my nose was stronger that way.

It was dark, and getting cold. Autumn was on its way.

I sat on a clifftop, looking at the moon. Fang had to be somewhere.

But where?

This is would answer. I would find Fang. My pack member would not go missing.

I was sure of this.

I lifted my head and howled to the moon.

**Wow. That was really short. But I didn't have anything else to say, so meh.**

**But now we know the general and immediate happenings after Fang got kidnapped. That's the important part.**

**Thanks to all that have reviewed! This includes-**

**Darkness of the Eclipse!**

**ThunderClouds7!**

**Zoe625!**

**Freedom Requires a Battle Cry!**

**BlueWolf21!**

**Booklover221!**

**Laxgrl2222!**

**Nitrea!**

**Flocklover19!**

**Yreva13!**

**SareRide9!**

**Jezabel Raewin!**

**Thank you!**

**Also, there was an error in the previous chapter that I just found. You probably wouldn't have found it unless you're a dinosaur nut, and I wouldn't have caught this if one of my friends was kinda one… Well, Spark technically shouldn't be able to transform into a Pterodactyl.**

**Why? Well, it's not really a dinosaur, it's a flying reptile. Just wanted to clear that up…**

**What's going to happen in the next story? Well, I wouldn't tell you the plot to begin with, and no one knows what's going to happen…**

**But finally, last but not least, let's have a big thank you to my editor/friend, BlueWolf21! She helped so much on this…**

**Anyway, my first story I actually completed! Let's hear it for dedication!**

**Good-bye! **


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